Bucks County PA Rug Store Brandon Oriental Rugs - www.BrandonRugs.com - Shares Wall Street Journal Article on Decoding Imagery in Oriental Rugs | PHOTOS

Decoding Imagery in Oriental Rugs

Centuries-old rugs from Turkey, Iran and the Caucasus are selling for as much as $9.6 million at auction, thanks to growing interest from new museums and collectors. Buyers say much of the fun comes in deciphering the symbols embedded in ancient weavers' designs. Here's a look at what some of the imagery portrays. – Kelly Crow  June 17, 2010 6:47 p.m. ET


1) As Islam spread across the ancient Near East, women from Istanbul to Samarkand began to weave portable prayer rugs. This rug made in the isolated mountains of Dagestan, near the Russian border, would have reminded its user where to place his hands while kneeling in prayer. A tiny brown comb symbol in the center might also represent the weaver. ERIN KUNKEL FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

2) Cypress trees often represented weavers' wishes for long lives and good fortune in the rugs like this one from the Turkic-speaking Afshar tribe from Afghanistan and Iran. This tree is green, but trees were often woven in candy colors like red and blue. ERIN KUNKEL FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

3) The nomadic tribes of the Caucasus often added birds to their rugs, but only the Kazaks in the Shirvan district near Tbilisi used this particular type of fan-tailed peacock to represent prosperity. Nearby are starbursts and an orb-like mandala that represent the heavens and the "wheel of life," respectively.  ERIN KUNKEL FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

4) This Gendje rug from the Caucauses is close to 200 years old, yet its color pops like new, thanks to natural dyes from indigo, saffron and the madder bush. The crenulated fence shape running along the lower edge is meant to protect the rug's sacred inner imagery from outside evils. "Z" shapes in the diagonal stripes to the upper left also echo the Zoroastrian symbol for the sun. ERIN KUNKEL FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

5) Birds like the ones in this late-18th century Laver from Iran were a popular motif in antique rugs because they symbolized freedom and flight from life's earthly toils. Laver rugs are also known for their ornate, floral symmetry. ERIN KUNKEL FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

6) Islam discouraged the use of human figures in its sacred art for fear of idolatry, but a woman in an A-line red skirt still pops up in this 150-year-old runner from Kurdish Bidjar. ERIN KUNKEL FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

7) As cultures and commerce overlapped, weavers often included symbols of their villages' latest technology. In the case of this Marasali, it's a Russian teapot, or samovar, shown in center. ERIN KUNKEL FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

8) One of the most common symbols in antique rugs is the boteh, a Persian word that means "cluster of leaves" and represented abundance, according to Jan David Winitz, a rug dealer in Oakland, Calif. Ancient weavers often torqued and stretched these rows of seed pods so they looked like flames or birds. Today's designers call it paisley. ERIN KUNKEL FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

http://on.wsj.com/1WdbZJt

Brandon Oriental Rugs - www.BrandonRugs.com - the company of oriental rug sales, cleaning, and repair in Bucks County, PA.

Here are the areas and communities we serve directly with all of our #rug-services (including #Rug-Search(tm); #rug-cleaning, #rug-repairs, #rug-appraisals, #room-measurements, #free-delivery, #interior-design-assistance, #rug-consignments, #rug-storage, #insurance-rug-damage-claims, #rug-shipment):

Bucks County, Pennsylvania: Doylestown, Jamison, Warminster, Warrington, Warwick, Washington Crossing, Upper Makefield, Newtown, Yardley, Langhorne, Richboro, Northhampton, Buckingham, Chalfont, Furlong, Lahaska (Peddlers Village), New Hope, Quakertown, Pipersville, Ottsville, Plunstead Township, Buckingham Township, Solebury, Upper Makefield Township, Lower Makefield Township, Bristol, Oxford Valley, Levittown, Morrisville, Wrightstown, Penns Purchase

Philadelphia and Suburbs in Southeast Pennsylvania: Philadelphia, Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Malvern, Devon, Main Line, Chestnut Hill and Bryn Mawr

Mercer County, NJ and nearby communities: Princeton, Titusville, Hamilton, NJ and vicinity

Hunterdon County, NJ and nearby communities: Lambertville, Clinton, Stockton, Whitehouse Station, Flemington, Ringoes, Basking Ridge, Bernardsville, Chester, Mendham

Chester, Montgomery and Delaware Counties in Pennsylvania: Valley Forge, King of Prussia, Upper and Lower Merion, Ft. Washington, Blue Bell, Lansdale, Abington, Rydal, Haverford, Huntingdon Valley, Abington, Newtown Square, Rydal, Paoli, Swarthmore, Conshohocken, Norristown, Harleysville, Blue Bell, Lower Gwynedd, Gwynedd Township, Montgomeryville, North Wales, West Point, Upper Frederick Township, Pennsburg, Greenlane, Perkiomonville, Souderton, Sellersville, Pottstown, Chester Springs, West Chester

Lehigh, Berks, Northhampton Counties in Pennsylvania: Easton, Bath, Bangor, Allentown, Bethlehem, Center Valley, Lower Saucon Township and the entire Lehigh Valley

The Poconos and Susquehanna Valley: Jim Thorpe, Mauch Chunk, Hawley, Scranton, Wilkes Barre, Pottsville, Stroudsberg, Delaware River Gap

New Horizons (Outside above Listed Areas)? Invite us to help you. We look forward to opportunities to explore new horizons. If we cannot help you with direct-to-door service, we are always pleased to answer questions and offer suggestions of value to you relative to your interest(s) in fine quality handmade rugs. Please give us a call if you need help.

Related articles

• Afghan Wars, Oriental Carpets, and Globalization
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Steps in Installing a REAL Handmade Stairway Runner Demonstrated by Bucks County, PA Rug Store Brandon Oriental Rugs | VIDEOS

A brief recap of the steps involved in the installation of a real hand-knotted oriental rug runner in our customer's home in Doylestown, PA. 
Brandon Oriental Rugs performed a custom search for the matched runners and a coordinated 5x8 hand-knotted oriental rug for the hallway on the second floor. Once found, and approved by the homeowners, the runners were custom resized to fit the two flights of stairs.  This alteration was done in a way that is virtually undetectable on the face and back of the rugs, and does not alter there value or potential for alternative use in future homes.

Please notice that by choosing to use real rugs, instead of machine -made roll runners, the finished look is much more pleasing. The rugs, liked framed paintings, are bordered all around, unlike roll runners that have borders only on the sides. 

Notice too that custom finished wrought iron decorative Stair-Holds were used instead of brass rods. This allows the beauty of the rugs to be featured instead of a lot of brazen hardware.

STEP ONE

http://youtu.be/yaP7fYapv68

STEP TWO

http://youtu.be/r1196nbT_mA

STEP THREE

http://youtu.be/HSOEFzg1DPc

STEP FOUR

http://youtu.be/KMMYXck_JtY

STEP FIVE

http://youtu.be/d6sSMaTXXlA

STEP SIX

http://youtu.be/qoLphqZZOko

STEP SEVEN

http://youtu.be/zvh6u-sVA2k

THE PRELIMINARIES

Here are the areas and communities we serve directly with all of our #rug-services (including #Rug-Search(tm); #rug-cleaning, #rug-repairs, #rug-appraisals, #room-measurements, #free-delivery, #interior-design-assistance, #rug-consignments, #rug-storage, #insurance-rug-damage-claims, #rug-shipment):

Bucks County, Pennsylvania: Doylestown, Jamison, Warminster, Warrington, Warwick, Washington Crossing, Upper Makefield, Newtown, Yardley, Langhorne, Richboro, Northhampton, Buckingham, Chalfont, Furlong, Lahaska (Peddlers Village), New Hope, Quakertown, Pipersville, Ottsville, Plunstead Township, Buckingham Township, Solebury, Upper Makefield Township, Lower Makefield Township, Bristol, Oxford Valley, Levittown, Morrisville, Wrightstown, Penns Purchase
Philadelphia and Suburbs in Southeast Pennsylvania: Philadelphia, Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Malvern, Devon, Main Line, Chestnut Hill and Bryn Mawr
Mercer County, NJ and nearby communities: Princeton, Titusville, Hamilton, NJ and vicinity
Hunterdon County, NJ and nearby communities: Lambertville, Clinton, Stockton, Whitehouse Station, Flemington, Ringoes, Basking Ridge, Bernardsville, Chester, Mendham
Chester, Montgomery and Delaware Counties in Pennsylvania: Valley Forge, King of Prussia, Upper and Lower Merion, Ft. Washington, Blue Bell, Lansdale, Abington, Rydal, Haverford, Huntingdon Valley, Abington, Newtown Square, Rydal, Paoli, Swarthmore, Conshohocken, Norristown, Harleysville, Blue Bell, Lower Gwynedd, Gwynedd Township, Montgomeryville, North Wales, West Point, Upper Frederick Township, Pennsburg, Greenlane, Perkiomonville, Souderton, Sellersville, Pottstown, Chester Springs, West Chester
Lehigh, Berks, Northhampton Counties in Pennsylvania: Easton, Bath, Bangor, Allentown, Bethlehem, Center Valley, Lower Saucon Township and the entire Lehigh Valley
The Poconos and Susquehanna Valley: Jim Thorpe, Mauch Chunk, Hawley, Scranton, Wilkes Barre, Pottsville, Stroudsberg, Delaware River Gap
New Horizons (Outside above Listed Areas)? Invite us to help you. We look forward to opportunities to explore new horizons. If we cannot help you with direct-to-door service, we are always pleased to answer questions and offer suggestions of value to you relative to your interest(s) in fine quality handmade rugs. Please give us a call if you need help.

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Oriental Rugs Are Where You Want To Be | Free Demo

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/133348838944445710/

In the picture above, you are here: in this room.

But your eyes (the mirrors of your soul) are telling you that you could be over there: in that room.

Can you appreciate that REAL handmade oriental rugs transform spaces into places you would prefer to be?

(Real handmade oriental rugs are the only kind that Bucks County, PA rug store Brandon Oriental Rugs offers: that means NO machine-made; NO tufted; NO imitation anything.)

Here are the areas and communities we serve directly with all of our #rug-services (including #Rug-Search(tm); #rug-cleaning, #rug-repairs, #rug-appraisals, #room-measurements, #free-delivery, #interior-design-assistance, #rug-consignments, #rug-storage, #insurance-rug-damage-claims, #rug-shipment):

Bucks County, Pennsylvania: Doylestown, Jamison, Warminster, Warrington, Warwick, Washington Crossing, Upper Makefield, Newtown, Yardley, Langhorne, Richboro, Northhampton, Buckingham, Chalfont, Furlong, Lahaska (Peddlers Village), New Hope, Quakertown, Pipersville, Ottsville, Plunstead Township, Buckingham Township, Solebury, Upper Makefield Township, Lower Makefield Township, Bristol, Oxford Valley, Levittown, Morrisville, Wrightstown, Penns Purchase
Philadelphia and Suburbs in Southeast Pennsylvania: Philadelphia, Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Malvern, Devon, Main Line, Chestnut Hill and Bryn Mawr
Mercer County, NJ and nearby communities: Princeton, Titusville, Hamilton, NJ and vicinity
Hunterdon County, NJ and nearby communities: Lambertville, Clinton, Stockton, Whitehouse Station, Flemington, Ringoes, Basking Ridge, Bernardsville, Chester, Mendham
Chester, Montgomery and Delaware Counties in Pennsylvania: Valley Forge, King of Prussia, Upper and Lower Merion, Ft. Washington, Blue Bell, Lansdale, Abington, Rydal, Haverford, Huntingdon Valley, Abington, Newtown Square, Rydal, Paoli, Swarthmore, Conshohocken, Norristown, Harleysville, Blue Bell, Lower Gwynedd, Gwynedd Township, Montgomeryville, North Wales, West Point, Upper Frederick Township, Pennsburg, Greenlane, Perkiomonville, Souderton, Sellersville, Pottstown, Chester Springs, West Chester
Lehigh, Berks, Northhampton Counties in Pennsylvania: Easton, Bath, Bangor, Allentown, Bethlehem, Center Valley, Lower Saucon Township and the entire Lehigh Valley
The Poconos and Susquehanna Valley: Jim Thorpe, Mauch Chunk, Hawley, Scranton, Wilkes Barre, Pottsville, Stroudsberg, Delaware River Gap
New Horizons (Outside above Listed Areas)? Invite us to help you. We look forward to opportunities to explore new horizons. If we cannot help you with direct-to-door service, we are always pleased to answer questions and offer suggestions of value to you relative to your interest(s) in fine quality handmade rugs. Please give us a call if you need help.

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• Homeowners in Basking Ridge, NJ Complete Living Room Makeover with New Oriental Rugs from Brandon Oriental Rugs (www.BrandonRugs.com) located in Bucks County, PA
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Langhorne, PA Interior Design Professional Selects Handmade Rug from Bucks County Rug Store Brandon Oriental Rugs - www. BrandonRugs.com - as First Step in Makeover of Her Own Living Room

Previously, Brandon Oriental Rugs posted on Twitter about our efforts on behalf of a Bucks County, PA interior designer whom we have helped on numerous projects. 

Rug ideas in contention for use by a Yardley, PA area interior designer for a living room project. Low key is key. pic.twitter.com/7nPgqPOmee

— Brandon Oriental Rug (@BrandonRugs) August 18, 2015

This particular project was slightly more challenging for her however, because it involved the direction she is taking to redecorate the living room of her own home.

The "BEFORE" images above and directly below, show that the designer has started the transition of her living room from rigid formality to an overall more relaxed look-and-feel suggested by the arm chairs, glass top coffee table, and Shaker-influenced end tables.

The sofa is scheduled to be re-upholstered, the window treatments are being changed to Plantation shutters, and the wall color (to be determined) will go from pale yellow to a warm gray neutral.

The rug chosen (after the pre-screeening of multiple alternate selections outlined above in the TWITTER post) is an 8x10 Pakistan (Peshawar) Khotan collection rug (shown below on the day of its arrival and unveiling at Brandon's one and only location just outside Doylestown in Buckingham Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. 

Made with 100% hand-spun, vegetal dye wool yarns on a cotton foundation and given a signature "silver wash" to impart the crisp, linen-toned background color associated with Khotan Collection reproduction oriental rugs, this rug brings the impact of a REAL hand-knotted oriental rug to the design plan with a subtle, subdued, understated complementarity.

Seen in the images below in the living room of the designer's Langhorne, PA historic district home on the day of installation, her beautiful new rug is right at home with all she has done in the room, and with the new directions in which she is taking it.

In order to give her time to organically develop her vision for the room, Brandon made every effort to find a common ground between where her room began and where she hopes to take it that was not in any way a compromise away from the ultimate goal. 

As her plans develop and are realized, she may continue to enjoy the comfort of a rug that is well coordinated with everything past and future in her home.

Related articles

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• Home Renovation in Princeton, NJ Completed with New Oriental Rug (PHOTOS)
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• When Searching for Fine Quality Area Rugs Adopt a New Paradigm Instead of Chasing the Latest SALE Promotion (Photo Evidence of Benefits)
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What Consumers Need to Know About What the Recovery Has Done for Oriental Rugs: Fashion or Economics? (PHOTOS)

The first two pictures below are of a rug we sold to a customer in 2006 (a couple of years before the "financial meltdown".) The rug shown is characteristic of the style and quality that was most popular at the time (and for most of the twenty-five years Brandon Oriental Rugs has been a company.) We're sure you can appreciate the intricate detail, and the large number of colors that make this rug truly beautiful.

The picture below is of the back of the rug above. The Quarter is a standard of measurement approximately equivalent to one square inch, and permits you to appreciate the almost incredible detail of the hand-knotting technique -- yes, each little dot is a knot individually tied by hand! This rug has over 400 hand-tied knots per square inch!




Since 2008, fashion marketers tell us, the trend has been toward simpler designs (and lesser grade construction techniques.)

The rug below is a reproduction Turkish Oushak made in India. Before 2008, there was little interest in rugs like this; and it was a tough sell. Post-2008, because it is among the least expensive truly handmade qualities available (NOT "tufted"; NOT "hand-loomed"), it has been relatively popular.



Notice that compared with the rug above, it has considerable fewer colors and much less detail. A look at the back of the rug (shown below) reveals that it is put together with barely forty hand-tied knots per square inch!



It is less costly than the first rug shown above (when compared on a price per square foot basis), but the savings are NOT proportional to the dramatic dropoff in work-manship and time invested to produce this rug versus the first. 
The second rug has barely one tenth the number of knots. (Consider that if the first rug took three hundred days to produce, this rug took thirty.) But this rug is sold at one third the price of the first, NOT one tenth. So you can appreciate that it is actually more costly for lesser quality. 

Rug buyers focused mainly on price (due to reduced buying power) are buying lower price rugs; but they are actually paying much more per knot than they were when Quality was the primary focus of their search for handmade rugs.

It's a kind of hidden inflation that should not be ignored by the savvy consumer. 

We invite all to consider if the dramatic change we have seen in the style and quality of rugs available was motivated by "fashion", or if it was due to economic pressures. 

Truth be told: as the "slow but steady recovery" progresses, demand for traditional, high quality rugs has returned. This is beginning to catch rug-producers who made low quality rugs during the downturn with a lot of inventory that smart consumers are never going to want. As we have demonstrated, those cheaply made rugs are NOT as inexpensive as they should be, and value shoppers are again looking at quality rather than "lowest price" as their definition of where value is found.

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