Oushak Rugs

The carpet weaving art has been continuously practiced in Oushak since at least the mid-15th century. Oushak is situated on the Gediz River about 100 miles inland from the Turkish west coast. Smyrna is its port city. Oushak rugs were among the first oriental pile carpets to reach Europe, and for centuries they have appeared in Old Master paintings in both religious and secular scenes. Oushak carpets have always been purely commercial and no Ottoman court workshop was ever established in that town. Sultans, Vizirs and Pashas did, however, employ Oushaks, usually of the grandest scale, in their household decor. Large Oushaks, mostly from the 18th century, with rows of prayer niches (saphs) were employed in great numbers in mosques in Istanbul and other Turkish cities. Today they have mostly been cut up to provide collector items.

The earliest surviving antique rugs are the "Holbein" pattern pieces, named after Hans Holbein the Younger, in whose paintings they frequently appear. They usual have dark blue, green or parti-colored grounds with two types of small repeating medallions. They were woven from about 1450 to 1520 and were superseded by the "Lotto" rugs, named after the Italian artist Lorenzo Lotto. These usually have warm madder red grounds and [...]

The carpet weaving art has been continuously practiced in Oushak since at least the mid-15th century. Oushak is situated on the Gediz River about 100 miles inland from the Turkish west coast. Smyrna is its port city. Oushak rugs were among the first oriental pile carpets to reach Europe, and for centuries they have appeared in Old Master paintings in both religious and secular scenes. Oushak carpets have always been purely commercial and no Ottoman court workshop was ever established in that town. Sultans, Vizirs and Pashas did, however, employ Oushaks, usually of the grandest scale, in their household decor. Large Oushaks, mostly from the 18th century, with rows of prayer niches (saphs) were employed in great numbers in mosques in Istanbul and other Turkish cities. Today they have mostly been cut up to provide collector items.

The earliest surviving antique rugs are the "Holbein" pattern pieces, named after Hans Holbein the Younger, in whose paintings they frequently appear. They usual have dark blue, green or parti-colored grounds with two types of small repeating medallions. They were woven from about 1450 to 1520 and were superseded by the "Lotto" rugs, named after the Italian artist Lorenzo Lotto. These usually have warm madder red grounds and chrome yellow angular arabesques, and were made from about 1500 until the 17th century. Larger and more popular in the West were the Star and Medallion carpets. The former retained the "Turkey red" grounds of the Lottos, but employed large blue stars with supporting arabesques. They are seen in numerous paintings, including several under the feet of King Henry VIII. In turn, the Medallion Oushak, initially influenced by Persian carpets seen and taken in the 1514 capture of Tabriz, became the major production type. With one, two or three complete medallions and fractional light blue side motives, the carpets range up to 30 feet in length. These were made from the early 16th century up until the 18th, the medallion getting more hexagonal and the whole effect more stylized. The fields are usually red, but some early, finer carpets have navy grounds. Medallion Oushaks were exported via Britain to the American Colonies where they were popular with the upper classes and can be noted in family portrait paintings. The angular medallion was revived in the 19th century for large carpets.

Smyrna developed its own version of Oushaks with non-medallion layouts on navy grounds with major details in red, green and ivory. Persian influenced palmettes are the main elements. These palmettes will re-appear in early 20th century carpets. They are all in carpet sizes. From the 19th century on Smyrna played a major creative role in the Oushak industry and many, if not most, later "Oushaks" are actually from Smyrna. The techniques and materials, however, remain the same.

In the later 19th century the Smyrna and Oushak carpet trade was in the hands of European, mainly Greek, merchants. In 1908 they banded together to form the conglomerate Oriental Carpet Manufacturers, incorporated in England and headquartered in Smyrna. They created an in-house design studio with an extensive library of illustrated carpet books. The Oushak and Smyrna carpets of that era are astoundingly eclectic, mixing all manner of Persian rugs, Turkish rugs, Caucasian and even Turkmen design motives together into previously unimagined combinations. Cypresses and weeping willows are framed with Caucasian Kazak borders. Harshang palmettes in the field meet surrounds taken from classic Turkish prayer rugs. Persian Heriz field patterns have Anatolian Konya borders. Larger sizes were the main products, often tending to square as 13 feet by 16 feet or 15 feet by 19 feet. There are a few runners and scatters from this period, but the expansive designs work best when given room to spread out.

They also reengineered the color palette. The saturated red, blue, green, ivory scheme of five centuries of Oushaks was replaced by rusts, peach, shrimp, mustard, pistachio, straw, oyster and beige, among other previously unheard of tonalities. These colors and the big, often asymmetric, always oddball patterns have made these antique carpets among the most popular today among designers and consumers.

Smyrna was burned in 1923 and the Greeks driven out in a nationalist pogrom. The Oushak carpet has not been the same since. The circa 1900 antique carpet style has been revived of late, generally in light, beige toned pieces with large, open allover patterns.

Antique Turkish Oushak carpets have always been woven with the symmetrical (Turkish) knot and on wool foundations, the exceptions being a few cotton warp 20th century pieces. The pile is usually sheep wool, but there are a small number with Angora goat hair instead. This gives a glossier, shiny appearance and the dyes are not taken quite as well. Angora goat hair is not currently used. The weave is generally quite coarse on the larger, early 20th century carpets, 30-40 knots per square inch, but on the earlier, antique rugs it may reach eighty. The pile is long in proportion to the knot density: fewer knots, longer pile. The pile lies down because of the loosely tied knots and lightly hammered wefts. The carpet handle is pliable, but heavy. The weavers worked on vertical wooden looms, some dating back centuries. The diagonal "lazy lines" visible on the backs indicate the number of weavers and their speed of work. It appears on even the oldest of antique Oushaks, indicating the persistence of workshop practices. "Lazy lines," sometimes visible on the face of antique rugs, is a diagonal break in a color field or across design elements. It is not necessarily considered a weaving defect or imperfection, it is just the nature of hand looming a rug and adds to its venerable character. It was sometimes asked for by importers and very common in tribal rugs such as American Navajos.

The dyes on Oushaks of the classic 15th-18th century period are rich and saturated with a warm and particularly brilliant "Turkey red" from madder mordanted with alum, blues from indigo, yellow from weld, and green from overdyeing light blue with yellow. A corrosive brown was also used. The dyes of more modern pieces with their unusual tonalities are usually synthetic, rust being the possible exception. The more aggressive aniline oranges and reds of some Caucasian and Persian rugs have generally been avoided.

Because of their long pile Oushaks wear well and even a relatively flat carpet is still full of life. They are among the easiest rugs to repair. Because their loose construction can result in floor slippage, a proper pad is obligatory.

Oushaks! When it comes to antique rugs, this is what everyone wants these days and we have a wide selection to match any taste, design scheme or budget. For six hundred years, there has never been a satisfactory substitute for an Oushak and there probably never will be.