Rugs Chinese & Mongolian

Tianjin in the 1930s, and the loom has learned Art Deco. Chinese and Mongolian rugs run from Baotou and Ningxia weaving of the late Qing to the Art Deco carpets of 1920s and 1930s Tianjin and Beijing. Their designs borrow from painting and porcelain: landscapes, scholar’s objects, carp, tigers, love knots, flowering branches on fields of blue, apricot and ivory. Art Deco rugs from Tianjin workshops such as that of Walter Nichols used strong color and asymmetric floral sprays for Western rooms. Pictorial rugs depict mountains, pavilions and rivers like scrolls laid on the floor.

Thick wool pile, often carved along the edges of the motifs, catches raking light. A Deco rug in a bedroom or a pictorial rug under a desk gives a room color and calm. A scroll, underfoot.