Size: 185cms by 90cms.

This was sold to me by one of the local oriental rug merchants - in the rich town up the railway line, I hasten to add. We now have half a rug shop (my good friend Michael who also sells period furniture and other sundry items, as well as rugs) but for years we didn’t even have half  of one - rug purchase was strictly an out-of-town business, apart from the odd, generally uninspiring windfall.

Anyhow, I know less about this rug even than I do about most of what I purchase. I first saw it when peering through the window, the shop being closed and this left draped over a pile of other rugs at the back. I was immediately bowled over - what is this Chinese-looking rug, which nevertheless looks like no Chinese rug I have ever seen? So I went back, it was as beautiful in the harsh light of day as it had been in the dimness of evening, it was Tibetan, so I was informed, and it was true love. When I asked the price, there was a long silence, while the delightful female person who owned the shop meditated on how little she could manage to ask for it, then came out with  a figure considerably less than I thought she could reasonably have asked.

And just before you conclude that this is a tale exclusively of sweetness and light, I have to mention that in choosing to buy this one, I saved myself from the dangerous possibliity that I might have gone for a Quashgai rug ‘to die for’ with a very unusual white ground, which I couldn’t really afford, but the likes of which I was sure I would never see again. Well, as the man said, that’s life: I have the Tibetan on the floor and the Quashgai only in my mind’s eye.  

(Since I’m in a discursive mood, I may add that Roger (about whom I have NOT forgotten that I promised to write) has just turned up with an Australian aboriginal ‘practice shield’, probably from the nineteenth century, which is one heavyweight ethnographic artefact, but fortunately for my wallet & peace of mind, I’m not interested. It’s an aboriginal bark-painting that I crave, though that should probably be corrected to two -because if only one turns up, Roger will keep it for his own collection and I’ll miss out. He had two in a while ago, -modern, but done in the traditional fashion, and we’re both annoyed: me because I didn’t buy one of them, and Roger - who was calling himself a wombat today - because he let them go far too cheaply.  

Here’s the rug:

tibetan-rug.jpg (best magnification seems to be 200, but maybe 300 possible also)