Another interesting class of very fine pile carpets that has also become
known comparatively recently to collectors is the so-called Polish
carpets, generally made of silk pile for the ornament, which is
distinctively Oriental, and of gold and silver thread textile for the
ground, very much after the manner of early 17th-century Brusa fabrics.
Many of these carpets are in the Czartoryski collection at Cracow. They
are discussed by Dr Bode in his treatise on Oriental carpets already
referred to. European coats of arms of the persons for whom they were
made are often introduced into them, sometimes different in workmanship
from that of the carpets, though there are specimens in which the
workmanship is the same throughout. The details of their designs consist
for the most part of arabesques and long curved serrated leaves similar
to such as are commonly used in Rhodian pottery decoration of the 16th
century, though more typical of those so frequent in 17th-century
Turkish ornament. Various considerations lead to the conclusion that
these so-called Polish carpets were probably made in either
Constantinople or Damascus (_tapete Damaschini_ frequently occur in
Venetian inventories of the 16th century) rather than, as has been
thought, by the Persian workmen employed at the Mazarski silk factory
which lasted for a short period only during the 18th century at Sleucz
in Poland.
Carpets made in France.
The European carpet manufactory, of which a continuous history for some
two hundred and fifty years is recorded with exceptional completeness,
is that which has been maintained under successive regimes, royal,
imperial and republican, in France--at the Hotel des Gobelins in Paris.
Seventy years before its organization under Colbert in 1667 as a state
manufactory (_Manufacture Royale des Meubles de la Couronne_), Henry IV.
had founded royal art workshops for all sorts of decorative work, at the
Louvre; and here in 1604 a workroom was established for making Oriental
carpets by the side of that which existed for making _tapis flamands_.
In 1610 letters patent were granted to the Sieur Fortier, who has been
reputed to be the first inventor in France of the art of making in silk
and wool real Turkey and other piled carpets with grounds of gold
thread, which must have been sumptuous fabrics probably resembling the
so-called Polish carpets of this date. Some ten years later it is
recorded that Pierre Dupont and Simon Lourdet started a pile carpet
(_tapis veloutes_) manufactory at Chaillot (Paris) in large premises
which had been used for the manufacture of soap--whence the name of
"Savonnerie." To this converted manufactory were transferred in 1631 the
carpet-makers from the Louvre, and under the direct patronage of the
crown it continued its operations for many years at Chaillot. It was not
until 1828 that the making of _tapis de la Savonnerie_ (pile carpets of
a fine velvety character) was transferred to the Hotel des Gobelins.
Here, in contradistinction to the Savonnerie, carpets are made others
which, like those of Beauvais (where a manufactory of hangings and
carpets was established by Colbert in 1664), are _tapis ras_ or
non-piled carpets, being of tapestry-weaving, as also are those made by
old-established firms at Aubusson and at Felletin, where the manufacture
was flourishing, at the former place in 1732 and at the latter in 1737.
Returning now to England, there are evidences towards the end of the
17th century, if not earlier, that Walloon and Flemish makers of Turkey
pile carpets had settled and set up works in different parts of the
country. A protective charter, for instance, was granted in 1701 by
William III. to weavers in Axminster and Wilton. The ultimate celebrity
of the pile carpet industry at Wilton was due mainly to the interest
taken in it during the earlier part of the 18th century by Henry, earl
of Pembroke and Montgomery, who in the course of his travels abroad
collected certain French and Walloon carpet-makers to work for him in
Wiltshire--over them he put two Frenchmen, Antoine Dufossy and Pierre
Jemale. More notable, however, than these is Pere Norbert, who
naturalized himself as an Englishman, changed his name to Parisot, and
started a manufactory of pile carpets and a training school in the craft
at Fulham about 1751. In 1753 he wrote and published "An account of the
new manufactory of Tapestry after the manner of that at the Gobelins,
and of carpets after the manner of that at Chaillot (i.e. Savonnerie)
now undertaken at Fulham by Mr Peter Parisot." Two refugee French
carpet-makers from the Savonnerie had arrived in London in 1750, and
started weaving a specimen carpet in Westminster. Parisot, having found
them out, induced the duke of Cumberland to furnish funds for their
removal to better workrooms at Paddington. The carpet when finished was
presented by the duke to the princess dowager of Wales. Parisot
quarrelled with his two employees, enticed others to come over, and then
removed the carpet works from Paddington to Fulham. A worker, J.
Baptiste Grignon, writing to "Mr Parisot in Foulleme Manufactory,"
mentions the marked preference "shown by the English court for velvet,"
and how much a "chair-back he had worked in the manner of the Savonnerie
had been admired." Correspondence published in the _Nouvelles Archives
de l'art francais_ (1878) largely relates to the efforts of the French
government to stop the emigration to England of workers from the
Gobelins and the Savonnerie. Parisot's Fulham works were sold up in
1755. He then tried to start a manufactory at Exeter, but apparently
without success, as in 1756 his Exeter stock was sold in the Great
Piazza auction rooms, Covent Garden. Joseph Baretti (Dr Johnson's
friend), writing from Plymouth on the 18th of April 1760, alludes to his
having that morning visited the Exeter manufactory of _tapisseries de
Gobelins_ "founded by a distinguished anti-Jesuit--the renowned Father
Nobert." Previously to this a Mr Passavant of Exeter[4] had received in
1758 a premium from the Society of Arts of London for making a carpet in
"imitation of those brought from the East and called Turky carpets."
Similar premiums had been awarded by the society in 1757 to a Mr Moore
of Chiswell Street, Moorfields, and to a Mr Whitty of Axminster. In 1759
a society's premium was won by Mr Jeffer of Frome. In the _Transactions
of the Society_, vol. i., dated 1783, it is stated that by their
rewards, the manufacture of "Turky carpets is now established in
different parts of the kingdom, and brought to a degree of elegance and
beauty which the Turky carpets never attained." Such records as these
convey a fair notion of the sporadic attempts which immediately preceded
a systematic manufacture of pile carpets in this country. Whilst the
Wilton industry survived, that actually carried on at Axminster died
towards the end of the 18th century, and the name of Axminster like that
of Savonnerie carpets now perpetuates the memory of a locally deceased
manufactory, much as in a parallel way Brussels carpets seem to owe
their name to the renown of Brussels as an important centre in the 15th
and 16th centuries for tapestry-weaving.
Modern machinery.
Before the existence of steam-driven carpet-making machinery in England,
employers, following the example set by the French, applied the Jacquard
apparatus, for regulating and facilitating the weaving of patterns, to
the hand manufacture of carpets. This was early in the 19th century; a
great acceleration in producing English carpets occurred, severely
threatening the industry as pursued (largely for _tapis ras_) at Tournai
in Belgium, at Nimes, Abbeville, Aubusson, Beauvais, Tourcoing and
Lannoy in France. The severity of the competition, however, was still
more increased when English enterprise, developing the inventions of
Erastus B. Bigelow (1814-1879) of America and Mr William Wood of
England, took the lead in perfecting Jacquard weaving carpet looms
worked by steam, which resulted in the setting up of many power-loom
carpet manufactories in the United Kingdom. It was not until 1880 that
French pile carpet manufacturers began to adopt similar carpet
power-looms, importing them from England.
These machines for weaving pile carpets, either looped (_boucle_) as in
Brussels, or cut (_veloute_) as in Wilton or Axminster carpets, were
similar in all respects to such as had been in use by the important
English manufacturers--Crossley of Halifax, Templeton of Glasgow,
Humphreys of Kidderminster, Southwell of Bridgnorth, and others. A
so-called tapestry carpet weaving-loom was invented by Richard Whytock
of Edinburgh in 1832, but it was not brought to sufficient completeness
for sustained manufacture until 1855. The essential feature of Mr
Whytock's process was that the warp-threads were dyed and
parti-coloured, in such a way that when woven the several points of
colour formed the pattern of the whole fabric. Although the name
"tapestry" is used, the texture of these wares has but a remote likeness
to that of hand-made tapestry hangings and carpets such as those of the
Gobelins and Aubusson manufactories, nor is it the same as the texture
of Brussels carpets. Machine-made tapestry carpets are also called
"ingrain" carpets, because the wool or worsted is dyed in the grain,
i.e. before manufacture. Germany in her manufacture of carpets resorts
chiefly to the "ingrain" process, but in common with Holland and Belgium
she produces pile (looped and cut) carpets from power-looms. In the
United States of America there are many similar and very important
carpet manufactories; and Austria produces fine cut pile carpets
(_veloutes_), the designs of which are largely derived from those of the
Aubusson tapestry-woven carpets (_tapis ras_).
Lengths or pieces of felt and other substantial material are frequently
made for floor and stair carpeting, and are often printed with patterns.
These of course come into quite another class technically. The
technological aspects of the several branches of carpet manufacture by
machinery are treated in the articles on TEXTILE-PRINTING and WEAVING.
Briefly, the products of carpet manufacture practically fall into three
main divisions: (1) Pile carpets (_tapis moquettes_) which are either
looped (_boucle_) or cut (_veloute_); (2) flat surface carpets (_tapis
ras_) as in hand tapestry-woven material; and (3) printed stuffs used
for carpeting.
Modern hand-made carpets.
Whilst the production of carpets by steam power predominates in Europe
and the United States of America, and at one time appeared to be giving
the _coup de grace_ to the craft of making carpets by hand, there has
been in recent times a revival in this latter, and many carpets of
characteristic modern design, several of them made in England, are due
to the influence of the late William Morris, who devoted much of his
varied energies to tapestry weaving and pile carpet weaving by hand,
both of which crafts are being fostered as cottage industries in parts
of Ireland, as well as in England. At the same time leading English
carpet manufactures continue to produce hand-made carpets as occasion
requires. In France a much more systematic existence of tapestry weaving
and pile carpet making by hand has been maintained and is of course
attributable to the perennial activity of the state tapestry works in
Paris (at the Gobelins workshops) and in Beauvais, and of corresponding
works managed by private enterprise at Aubusson and elsewhere.
Designing patterns for English carpet manufacture is now more organized
than it was, and greater thought and invention are given to devising
ornament suitable to the purpose of floor coverings. Before 1850 and for
a few years later, rather rude realistic representations of animals and
botanical forms (decadent versions of Savonnerie designs) were often
wrought in rugs and carpets, and survivals of these are still to be met
with, but the lessons that have been subsequently derived from
intelligent study of Oriental designs have resulted in the definite
designing of conventional forms for surface patterns. The early movement
in this direction owes much to the teaching of Owen Jones, and in its
later and rather freer phases the Morris influence has been powerful.
Schools of art at Glasgow, at Manchester, Birmingham and elsewhere in
the United Kingdom have trained and continue to train designers, whose
work has contributed to the formation of an English style with a new
note, which, as a French writer puts it, has created a sensation in
France, in Germany, in fact in all Europe and America.
France retains that facility of execution and liveliness in invention
which have been nurtured for over three hundred years by systematic,
governmental solicitude for education in decorative design and
enterprise in perfecting manufacture. Her Aubusson and Savonnerie
carpets have maintained a style of design in form and colour entirely
different from any that clearly throws back to Oriental principles, and
many of the designs for the finer and larger of these carpets are
schemed with large central oval panels, garlands of flowers and
fantastic frames very much on the plan of what is frequently to be seen
in the decoration of ceilings. At the same time the style called _l'art
nouveau_ has become developed. It largely grows from very fanciful
dispositions of free-growing natural forms, as well as curiously curved
and tenuous forms, many of which are bone-like and fibre-like in
character, flat in treatment and rather thin and washy in colour, and
its influence has slightly percolated into designs for pile carpets.
This style, sometimes intermixed with the more robust, less fantastic
and rather fuller-coloured English style, has found followers in
England, America and Germany, but the bulk of the designs now used in
power carpet looms seems to be mainly of Oriental descent.
The more important art museums in Europe contain collections of Oriental
carpets, and the history of many is fairly well established. The subject
has become one of serious study, the results of which have been
published and elucidated by means of well-executed coloured
reproductions of carpets and rugs preserved in both public and private
collections.