Old rugs: design
Some of these old floral rugs are crude and naive, with only the charm of all primitive folk art.
Some are miracles of intricate, balanced, beautifully drawn design. It is amazing how many nineteenth century housewives had truly creative artistic ability.
If woman's place hadn't been in the home in those days, these superb designs would probably never have existed. The artistic gifts of these women would have made them famous as painters or commercial designers, and they would have had no time to patiently pull little pieces of cloth through burlap.
Inspiration for these designs came from many sources—perhaps a bit of carving on a fine chest, perhaps a beautiful silk brocade or piece of imported wallpaper.
The most noticeable , influence is French, and it is not hard to see that some of the elaborate scroll and flower patterns had an aristocratic Savon-nerie or Aubusson ancestor.
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