SPOILS FROM THE EAST

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2734, 12 February 1910, Page 4 (Supplement)

SPOILS FROM THE EAST

EX-SULTAN’S CARPETS. Stories of magic carpets are recalled by Messrs. Liberty’s invitation to see the carpets of the deposed Sultan of Turkey, Avhich have been brought to the shoAvrooms, at 142 Regent-street, from his palace on the Bosphorus. There is an important difference, lioavever, between the carpet of Prince Housain of the Arabian Nights and those of thp Sultan, says one London, writer. The magic carpet avus worn and shabby, but those acquired by Messrs. Liberty, from Yildiz Kiosk, are in perfect condition, and of the deepest pile. The most characteristically Eastern of Abdul Hamid’s carpets has a ground of deep rich red, but the most imposing of them all suggests the influence of a French designer. This fine specimen, thirty feet in length, and. say, more than tAventy in breadth, is, in texture and manufacture, a noble specimen of the Turkey, carpet with the uncommon quality of a pile that varies in depth according to the pattern. Those relics of the deposed. Sultan form part of a notable exhibition of Eastern carpets that has just been.arranged by Messrs. Liberty. So fin 0 a collection of ancient rugs and carpets, Persian, Turkish. Afghan, and Ghim ese, has rarely, if ever, beqn brought together for sale. Ivhorassan, Saraband, Afghan, and Kirman carpets, exquisite old Persian carpets of silk of the softest blues and golds, a marvellous eighteenth-century Kuba rug with a ground of rose-red; a blue Koulal; prayer-rug that is worth £9O, although it measures only 6 feet by 3 feet, and a Ghiordes prayer-rug, a trifle larger, and valued at £l2O, are among the choicest in the exhibition, howcY’or, contains also numbers of rugs and carpets beautiful and harmonious in color, at far more moderate prices.