Celebrating Masterworks

It’s no secret that we love working with the spectacular Ryan Lawson, and we’re especially thrilled to see his inspired visions in an exhibition called CELEBRATING MASTERWORKS, in which Ryan uses some of our vintage and antique carpets to help build narratives around the furniture.

With Ryan’s eclectic touch, he pulls from the incredible collections of Dobrinka Salzman and Diner Gallery to curate the best of the best works by a number of artists.

Here an early 20th Century Donegal Arts & Crafts Carpet Designed by Gavin Morton brings an intense warmth that offsets the wall color perfectly.

The “Turkey red” Oushak based design eschews borders, and the whole effect is that of a centered, but not overtly medallion, layout. The color palette is narrow, including red, cream and black. One could see it as a Turkish village yastik (cushion cover) blown up to vast room-size. The weave is quite coarse and the carpets were intended for a middle class clientele, going with wallpaper, furnishings and accessories. They were marketed primarily through Liberty of London.  The carpets in this design, as most of Donegals were, came in various colorways, and there are examples with cream and dark blue grounds.

Unlike Oushaks which were produced in quantity, Donegal carpets were woven in smaller numbers and have always been relatively uncommon.

Stock ID 24303
Irish Donegal
11’4” x 16’8”
circa 1900

https://antiquerugstudio.com/donegal-arts-crafts/24303

In this ensemble a 1950s Swedish Rya grounds the space with its modern rendition of pictorial tradition that is more than two centuries old.

The relatively shaggy pile is arranged in an oval ecru lattice creating pumpkin yellow – orange reserves, forming a background for stick figures of peasants wielding pitchforks, baskets, staves and slings for seeding. Some could be construed as ancient military figures with shields.

The pictorial tradition in Scandinavian Rya and Rollakan pile and flat-weave, rugs and carpets is more than two centuries old, and in fact probably had an origin back in Mediaeval times.

Stock ID 19728
Swedish Rya
6’6” x 9’9”
circa 1950

https://antiquerugstudio.com/rya/19728

The open light rose field of this 1930s Austrian Art Nouveau Vienna Werkstätte carpet is bounded by a narrow stripe of alternating squares and rectangles. The general effect is minimal yet colorful. The carpet does not have a design in competition with the art and other furnishings, but it easily holds its own in any context.

Stock ID 19280
Austrian Art Deco
9’4” x 13’6”
circa 1930

https://antiquerugstudio.com/art-deco-european/19280

This space features a mid 20th century Ecuadorian carpet designed by Olga Fisch which is an abstracted and minimalist design in neutral tones – inspired by the Nazca Lines of Peru.

The “Nazca Lines” are ancient Peruvian, but they have inspired the drawing on this Moderne New World carpet. The vast majority of Ecuadorian carpets display active, schematic human figures and animals, generally in dark tones contrasting with cream, borderless grounds. This is the only known carpet by this designer executed in a totally abstract, minimalist manner.

Stock ID 24599
Ecuadorian
12’4” x 17’3”
circa 1960

https://antiquerugstudio.com/ecuadorian-/24599

We hope you’ve been inspired by these lovely and eclectic views, and will contact us when you’re ready to act on your inspiration.

Abstract English Tufted Carpet

#20-3022

English Tufted Carpet

By Ron Nixon

9’3” x 11’9”

C. 1970

Wool Pile on a cotton canvas ground, jute lining.  Excellent condition.

This borderless English carpet is stamped on the jute lining “Designed and made by Ron Nixon”.  The abstract, Op Art pattern is a geometric array of semi-circles, parallelograms, fat S-shapes, triangles, and various sinuous sections.  The sections are in a wide range of colors, including royal blue, straw, rust, black, various greens, navy, sand and a few shaded, bitonal areas. Not only do the sections vary in tone, but the wool is different in each as well. The differences are quite easily visible, and the feel sets each apart from the others. Each color must have been dyed separately with a specific wool batch. However, the pile is all at the same level. The tufting process was carried out through a mechanical process on a cotton ground canvas, operated by skilled operatives following a cartoon.  Needles were used to insert the variously colored wool yarns. A room size carpet could be completed in a few days via the tufting method, which is much faster than hand knotting. The totally geometric style is consistent with the late 1960’s or early 1970’s.

This one of a kind piece was commissioned by National Westminster Bank in Glasgow, Scotland for the offices of the Area Managing Director.

The designer, Ron Nixon worked with another prominent British textile artist in the 1970’s, Barbara Brown, and was also a well-known painter working in a hard-edged abstract style in primary colors. The carpet is very Mod in design, in keeping with the stylistic trends of the period. The restraint of Art Deco has been replaced by a riot of colors. Nixon’s carpet work is relatively rare outside of the U.K. and we are pleased to present such a striking example with a solid provenance.

View this rug on our website by clicking here.

#40-1150 Silvia Heyden Tapestry: circa 1965

Rug #:40-1150

Origin: America

Type: Tapestry

Size: 4’3″ x 7’7″

Construction: High warp linen tapestry

Circa: 1965

 

 

 

 

Silvia Heyden, born Silvia Stucky, in Basel Switzerland in 1927, studied at the School of Arts in Zürich from 1948-1953 .  After her marriage to Dr Siegfried Heyden in 1954, Silvia spent the following years with her children in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Berlin.

Her first tapestry loom was purchased in 1964 for a large commission for the Expo-Suisse in Lausanne, Switzerland.  The family moved to Durham, NC when Siegfried received a new position at the Duke University Medical Center in 1966.  This move would lead to her first major exhibit at the Duke University of Art Museum, in Durham in 1972.

From 1974-1992 Heyden took part in numerous large exhibits and worked on commissions in the US and Europe.  This particular piece was made in America, the label seen below (included with this tapestry), indicates the hometown of the designer.

*written and researched by: Katrina Mauro