Oriental Carpets

Afghan rugs are genuine, often charming, and usually phenomenally inexpensive.

Indian Sarouk Rugs, or Indo-Sarouks, are Indian rugs made to look like classic Persian Sarouk rugs.

Old World Classics make Mahindra-like rugs and carpets in India in about forty designs, with handspun wool and natural dyes, washed and finished entirely without chemicals.

There’s a fantastic exhibit about Turkmen rugs, called For Tent and Trade: Masterpieces of Turkmen Weaving going on at San Francisco’s de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park.

Apparently the most expensive rug ever sold. At less than 6 x 8 feet, the price comes out to about $105,000 per square foot.

Malcolm and David Samad are not interested in literally reproducing antique rugs. Instead, they give their producers in India designs of antique pieces as starting points from which weavers can improvise, and give them specific colors with which to work. The resulting carpets are unlike any made before.

Israeli carpets of the Bezalel school in Jerusalem display a unique blend of Jewish, Persian, Turkish and European styles in designs that focus on the Holy Land.

Teddy Sumner and George Jevremovic were the first people to make Oriental rugs on a commercial scale in modern India with natural dyes and hand-spun wool. Together they formed a project called Black Mountain Looms.