Arguably period quality rugs have been a relatively obscure complex world, little understood and generally underappreciated. One of my favourite possessions is an Iranian silk carpet its sensual touch is a constant joy. A fine rug or carpet is a foundation to any interior.

My last visit to the Mayfair premises of C. John (Rare Rugs) Ltd was to meet the genial Leon Sassoon as he prepares to give up a physical gallery and trade on-line whilst continuing to be an expert consultant; in much the same as manner as much of the antiques trade has done in the twenty-first century.

Leon who having ‘grown up' in the gallery became a Director in 1978. He is the nephew of the founder John Cohen who established an antiques and rugs business in Oxford in 1933 before moving to South Audley Street in 1947. In 1966 they received the Royal Warrant as supplier of carpets to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. ‘Back then you could wander around Buckingham Palace without security'. In 1969 we sold a carpet to J.P. Getty for £22,000. Today the market is on the floor, (no pun intended), save for the truly exceptional the classic rugs and carpets market is very similar to that of period furniture; generally depressed and it has been since the late 1990's. The most valuable sale recently was around £350,000 – it's a good time to buy!' he adds with a twinkle in his eye.

Today we view the Golden Age of rug production to be between 1880 – 1920 but as a serviceable working item anything of quality even only forty years old is of interest. Rugs of course were made in ancient Egypt, (Remember Cleopatra was said to have been carried to Caesar rolled up in one), as demonstrated in a fresco from c.3000 B.C. depicting workers at a loom, but not by tying wool onto warp threads - these Egyptian rugs were made flat much in the same manner of a tapestry. Later Coptic period fragments sell for several thousands of pounds as antiquities

The art of carpet weaving in Iran originated more than 2,500 years ago and were originally woven as articles of necessity to cover the floors of nomadic tribesmen, giving them protection from cold and damp their herds of sheep and goats provided them with high quality and durable wool for this purpose. In 1949 Russian archaeologists discovered the oldest know knotted carpet in the Pazyryk valley on the Altai Mountains of Siberia. It dates to the 5th century and survived two millennia preserved in the frozen tombs of Scythian nobles and is now on display in the Hermitage.

 
A Persian silk rug, c.1870, £18,000

The Persian carpet reached its zenith during the reign of the Safavid Dynasty in the 16th century. Shah Abbas (1587-1629) built workshops for carpets in his new capital, Isfahan. Most of these fine court carpets were made of silk, with gold and silver thread adding even more embellishment. The court period ended with the Afghan invasion of 1722. In June 2013 a seventeenth century Persian rug sold for $33.8 million. The Clark sickle-Leaf Carpet made in Kerman had been in the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington since industrialist William Clark bequeathed it in 1926. It was the only example known with a rare ‘vase' technique on a red ground. This was three times that realised by a Kerman ‘vase' carpet which was the earliest known example of the popular Persian design called the herati pattern at $9.6 million.

In the later nineteenth century carpet making flourished once more with Tabriz merchants exporting carpets to Europe through Istanbul. European and American companies set up business in Persia. Arguably the most famous being Ziegler & Co. founded in 1883 in Manchester based Anglo-Swiss producer and distributor of Persian carpets in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The company had workshops in Tabriz and Sultanabad. The company's designs were modified versions of more traditional Persian designs. It used the latest dying techniques and employed the best artisans from the area often employing very large looms. They favoured bolder all-over patterns and softer palettes than sometimes livelier traditional Persian carpets – it supplied retailers including Liberty & Company and Harvey Nichols and the much-copied Ziegler style of carpet became an integral part of the ‘English Country House' look.

In India carpet weaving was one of the most outstanding aspects of textile production under the Mughal dynasty, especially under Shah Jahan founding Lahore as a major carpet weaving centre. many Indo-Isfahan types had a common repertory of later Islamic design as with courtly Safavid Persian rug production of the period. Agra and further south in Deccan have a more Indian quality with highly naturalistic, tropical plants and floral arabesques in a rich palette. Hunting scenes were also favoured. A Mughal Millefleurs ‘Star Lattice' carpet from northern India once owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt II sold for $7.7 million dollars.

Real complexity comes when trying to comprehend what is a Turkish rug; so Anatolian rug is an umbrella term which geographically equates to the Ottoman Empire. They show traces of Byzantine design, layered with those of Turkic and Armenian peoples, Caucasian and Kurdic tribes' traditional motifs and ornaments. The arrival of Islam profoundly influenced Anatolian rug design towards stylized, geometric patterns mostly made up of symmetrical knots. From the 1870s some silk carpets were also produced. In Europe Anatolian rugs were frequently depicted in Renaissance paintings often in a context of dignity, prestige and luxury such as that depicted in Holbein's ‘The Ambassadors' of 1533.

 
A Turkish Coula Prayer Rug, wool, c. 1730, £10,000

Sheep's wool is the most used pile as it is soft durable easy to work and is not too expensive. It is less susceptible to dirt than cotton, does not react electrostatically and insulates against both heat and cold. Crucially it also takes dyes well. Cotton is used primarily in the foundation warps and wefts of rugs as it is stronger than wool lies flat and is less prone to distortion. Traditional dyes are obtained from plants insects and minerals. Red generally derivers from madder roots, yellow from onion, black from oak apples and acorns, blue from indigo, (Indigofera tinctorial), green by double dying with indigo and yellow dye and orange by double dyeing with madder red and yellow dyes. Natural dyes generally tend to fade over time and thus produce a sought-after patina. Synthetic dyes were developed and used from the 1860's. On a loom the pile is knotted by hand onto vertical warps and are beaten into place, the pile falls into one direction. The higher number of knots per square centimetre being a sign of quality.

During the Middle Ages Crusaders returning from the Middle East introduced oriental rugs to Europe where they were placed on stone floors to provide warmth. Rugs made for kings were true artisanal works of art. Henry IV of France established a factory in the Louvre in the 17th century and Paris Savonnerie had a deep wool pile. In 2000 a carpet designed by Pierre-Josse Perrot made for the Crown furniture Repository in France. The Louis XV Savonnierie carpet made between 1740 and 1750 was the last one produced sold for $4.4 million. French rug-making techniques spread to England and the Netherlands with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes; although some earlier examples are known from the reign of Elizabeth I. 

The term rug was first used in English in the 1550's meaning ‘coarse fabric'. It was primarily through Italian merchants that Oriental rugs and carpets became recognised and valued in Europe with Venice acting as a major trading hub. By the early sixteenth century carpets inhabited the magnificent courts of Catherine de medici and Charles V. In England Cardinal Wolsey purchased sixty Turkish carpets from a Venetian dealer to furnish Hampton Court Palace.

Whilst visiting Cheapside Market London Devon-based weaver Thomas Whitty was impressed by a large Turkish carpet he saw. On his return to Axminster he used his skills to work out how to produce a product of similar quality and produced his first carpet in 1755. Whitty's carpets looked much like horizontal tapestries soon became the benchmark for wealthy aristocrats so much so that in 1800 his company made a 74 foot by 52-foot carpet for Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II for the Topkapi Palace. A disastrous fire destroyed the weaving looms in 1835 and the business relocated to Wilton in Wiltshire. In 1929 a Kidderminster carpet manufacturer, (Kidderminster being the U.K. home of the machine-made carpet), revived production of carpets in Axminster and has supplied the Royal Household ever since.

Antique Chinese rugs were woven almost exclusively for internal consumption and as such they were mostly sheltered from Western influences and therefore enjoy an unique ethnically Chinese look and appeal utilising Chinese motifs including dragons, bats, flaming pearls etc. as well as rich colours such as imperial yellow, blues and reds. I admired a large Nixgxia rug c. 1850 in the gallery costing £15,000.

In the early twentieth century many designers' artists and architects designed carpets in the Modernist / Art Deco idiom. Including Emiles-Jacques Ruhlmann, Paul Leleu, in France and in 1930 even Francis Bacon designed rugs which were made in the Royal Wilton Carpet factory. The advent though of the fitted carpet began the demise of the traditional rugs and carpets. Leon recalled being instructed to stich them down onto fitted carpets, in order to reduce movement, often with unsatisfactory results. He advises that rugs should be cleaned annually, (you would be amazed how much dirt comes out when you beat them, he adds), and be rotated to ensure even wear and sun exposure. Carpets can be washed professionally by hand using pure soap suds – care must be taken however not to get the piece wet enough for any colours to shift.

 
A circular carpet c. 1926 designed by Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann, £15,500

Rugs are inherently robust and are repairable holes and tears can be repaired, moth damage and worn areas re-piled. When storing rugs thoroughly clean them first, protect from moths and other insects, tightly roll the rug for storage, (generally with the pile facing forward). wrap it in a protective fabric cotton sheet or plastic and store off the ground in a cool dry environment, unroll and check for signs of damage every few months. Use a fan or dehumidifier to avoid mildew problems. But probably the best advice is to avoid your local IKEA and invest in some quality period rugs from just £50 and enjoy them!