Excerpts from a classic text : Oriental Rugs by John Kimberly Mumford  (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1901)

A Century of the Rug Industry:
CLASSIC TEXT ON RUGS SHOWS THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME

By Lissa Wyman

There is an eerie similarity between the rug industry of the early 20th Century and the rug industry of the early 21st  Century. 

Both hand-made and machine-made rugs had grown at a torrid pace in the 1890's, but statistics and official information were virtually non-existent for both buyers and sellers.

What was needed was a staightforward, fact-based text to guide both consumers and the trade.  John Kimberly Mumford's book, Oriental Rugs (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1901) filled that need. Written in long, leisurely sentences, Mumford's prose has a circumlocuitous style that still has a gentle charm. After 100 years, the text remains a classic.

Here are a some excerpts from the book, which was graciously loaned to Rugnews.com by John Didier, a rug collector in Dalton, GA.

 Passion for Rugs

Writing in 1901, Mumford tells us that  both machine made and hand made  rugs were madly popular in America

"The fact that the importation of Eastern fabrics (rugs) on the one hand, and the manufacture of American imitations and substitutes on the other, has so fabulously increased during the decade just passed, is of much significance in connection with the lack of all definite published information on the subject....Custom House statistics show that while prior to 1892 there were brought to this country only $300,000 worth of Oriental rugs annually, the value of the importation has grown, even under the most deterrent tarrif schedules, to more than $3,000,000. the manufacture of American machine-made rugs has increased ten-fold in the same time...(In the rug-weaving countries) Manufacture for market has become the rule instead of the exception, and European and American designs have been sent to the Oriental weaver for working.€VbCrLf (pp.2-4)

 

The Problem of Quality

As demand increases, Mumford bemoans  a decline in craftsmanship

"Something must be said concerning the deterioration in Oriental fabrics...In some districts, the decadence in the present product, from the old standards of design, color and execution, is pitiful. The weavers seem to have learned from the West the demoralizing lesson of haste, and have developed to a sad degree the attendant vice of carelessness...The patterns are being Occidentalized, the colors are already, to a great extent, the product of the laboratory. ...At the root of the matter lies the demand of the West for these fabrics, a demand born of the growing artistic tendency - or possibly the €˜Oriental Fad' of Western peoples. (pp. 6-7). (NB: €˜Orientalism' was a craze in decorating and popular art during the late 1800's).

The Definition of €˜Antique'

An age-old question: When does a rug become an antique?

"...Interpretations differ as to the precise meaning of the word €˜antique,' as applied to Eastern carpetings. For the purpose of the collection, an €˜antique' has been defined as a fabric which (is) not less than 50 years of actual age. But the number of these arriving in this country consists of such an infinitesimal proportion of the entire importation of fabrics offered for sale by that name, and artificial methods are so efficacious in producing the appearance of age, that rug dealers, for business purposes, have come to counts as €˜antiques' all fabrics which, in respect of dyes, materials, patterns and texture, are constructed in anything like similarity and equality to the rugs of half a century back.€VbCrLf (p.8)

Making Antique Looks

There's nothing new about antique  finishes and washes

"Even the best of modern products are forced to pay tribute to the infatuation of the West for what is or seems to be of great age. The astute vendors of the East, and undoubtedly some in this country, take shrewd advantage of every blemish in a rug, and employ unnumbered tricks of chemical and other treatment to add the appearance of age, and consequent value, to fabrics which left the looms perhaps not more than a year ago.

"It may be that your €˜antique'....has within its brief twelve-months of existence..been treated with lemon juice and oxalic acid to change its flaring red into old shades, or with coffee to give it the yellow of years. Its lustre may be born of glycerine. It may have been singed with hot irons. Its hues have perhaps been dulled by smoke. It may have been buried in the ground and then renovated, sand-papered back and front to give the thinness of old age, and for the sheer decrepitude of ....antiquity, hammered and combed at the sides and ends, and on spots over its surface.€VbCrLf (p.9).

Price

"It is best to recognize...the indisputable fact that you cannot now secure desirable Oriental rugs for a song. Even though they be sold in the Orient at...most reasonable prices, it must not be forgotten that the duty upon them is 40% ...When transportation, the ordinary expenses of business, profits of jobbers, etc., are counted, the foreign fabric necessarily calls for a substantial price....and it is safe to rest assured, generally, that who sells an Oriental rug very cheap is selling a very cheap Oriental rug as well.€VbCrLf (p.10)

Aniline Dyes

An attempt to stop the use of aniline  dyes results in some tough penalties.

"Aniline blue (dye) first appeared in 1860. Less than a year afterward, it took 10 manufactories in Germany, England, Italy and Switzerland to produce this material. While the manufacture of aniline colors thus became European, their consumption spread still farther, and now...the West supplies the East with coloring matter.€VbCrLf (p. 44-45)

"The Eastern governments warred energetically against the use of (aniline dyes). In one part of Persia it was ordered long ago that a dyer convicted of using aniline preparations should have his right hand cut off by way of punishment.€VbCrLf (p.48)

An Edict by the Shah

An excerpt from an edict by the Shah of Persia on Jan. 1, 1900: " €˜It is forbidden to bring in the kingdom: aniline dyes, whether in dry or liquid form, as well as all coloring materials, whether dry or liquid, into which aniline enters as a component...Any importation ...or exportation made in violation of this law, shall be followed by seizure and confiscation of the goods....' " (p.50)

Mumford noted that in the year after the law took effect, several large consignments had been seized and destroyed.  That precipitated the following prediction:

 "Unless there be a pitiful backsliding, it is not too much to prophesy that within two or three years the Persian rugs will be found to have improved greatly in terms of coloring, and it will no longer be dangerous, as it is now, to wash them, even in clear water, for fear some of the dyes will run.€VbCrLf (p.52)

Registration of Designs

To conform to Western standards of interior design and furniture placement, Western companies in the late 1800's provided Eastern weavers with designs, according to Mumford. There was also some attempt to register the individual designs.

"Western firms..provided sketches of what they wanted, and contracted with the Oriental agents...It was first tried in Asia Minor, and proved so successful that the Western designers are now stationed at weaving centers in Persia and India, as well as in Anatolia. The (designs) of these gentlemen, following in general the theory of the East, but combining the designs of the various types, or supplying Occidental features, in such manner as to please the Western fancy or accord with other Western decorations, are registered as the property of the firms. It has been the custom of the native weavers to appropriate them, but the governments, after long insistence and the invocation of consular influence, have decided that the registration shall protect the design, and that to violate it shall be a publishable misdemeanor.€VbCrLf (p.79).