European Carpets & Tapestries

Pan-European renditions of an age-old art form originating in the Orient.

While Europe may not be the birthplace of the art of piled carpet weaving, the art has certainly attracted a wide-enough audience in the continent to warrant the creation of a flourishing carpet weaving industry. Although rugs & carpets were often directly imported to Europe from abroad (mainly from Persia and Anatolia), the shift in tastes of Europeans as well as the industrial revolution of the 1750s led the local populations to establish their own weaving styles, combining both Baroque and Renaissance elements with more traditional Oriental elements of design.