The Rug Library

On a knotting loom, a shed stick turned on edge separates alternate warps for the weft to pass, and reversing it opens the countershed for the return pass.

Horizontal ground looms can be pegged out and dismantled quickly, which suits nomadic weavers, while settled workshops more often use vertical looms with upper and lower beams.

Lepcha weaves of Sikkim, called thara, are made on back-strap loin looms, which limits the cloth to narrow widths.

Monpa weavers are documented using three kinds of loom: the loin loom, a high-warp or treadle loom, and a low-warp loom.

MAP Academy states that Indian pile carpets are most commonly woven on roller-beam looms, which let a carpet longer than the loom's height be wound on as work progresses.

Backstrap looms are tensioned by the weaver's own body, one end tied around the waist and the other to a fixed post, and they weave cloth no wider than the weaver's reach.

MAP Academy notes that most Indian dhurries are woven on horizontal pit looms, with exceptions such as the Belgaum dhurries of Karnataka.

On the upright looms used by Bhutia carpet weavers in Sikkim, the cotton warp, called taan, is mounted on the upper beam and the finished carpet is wound onto the lower beam.

The warp-weighted loom is an ancient loom type in which the warps hang from a bar and are kept taut by bundles tied to loom weights.

Kharad rugs were traditionally woven on nomadic looms that could be set up, dismantled and carried across the desert by pack animals.

The upper and lower beams of a vertical carpet loom are either joined by two upright posts or set into holes in the workroom walls.

The Bhadohi carpet GI covers carpets made across nine districts of the region: Bhadohi, Mirzapur, Varanasi, Ghazipur, Sonbhadra, Kaushambi, Allahabad (Prayagraj), Jaunpur and Chandauli.

The Mirzapur–Bhadohi belt is described by the Bhadohi district administration as the country’s largest handmade carpet-weaving cluster, with an estimated 3.2 million people engaged in the industry.

After the upheaval of 1857 in Agra and Delhi, a number of carpet weavers are said to have moved from Agra to the village of Madhosingh on the Grand Trunk Road between Bhadohi and Mirzapur and resumed weaving on a small scale.

In the late 19th century a British-run firm, E. Hill & Co., was set up at Khamaria near Bhadohi to produce hand-knotted carpets on a commercial scale.

Obeetee was established at Mirzapur in 1920 by three Britons, and the company name is formed from the founders' initials (O, B and T).

A widely told Mirzapur legend says a caravan of Persian weavers bound for the Mughal court was attacked on the Grand Trunk Road, sheltered by villagers, and that the master weaver stayed to teach his hosts.

Mirzapur–Bhadohi has long been a centre not only for knotted pile carpets but also for flatwoven dhurries and kilims, with artisan skills believed to date back to the Mughal era.

In weaving villages around Mirzapur, such as Purjagir Mujehara, local people commonly refer to carpets as 'galicha'.

Obeetee, which began with a small group of artisans in Mirzapur, reportedly now works with more than 25,000 artisans, and its carpets have been used at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

The paisley pattern is built on the boteh or buta, a teardrop-shaped motif with a curved upper tip that is generally described as Persian in origin.

The English name 'paisley' comes from the Scottish town of Paisley, a textile centre where weavers reproduced the Kashmir boteh design on jacquard looms.

Flowering plants were a favourite subject of Mughal artists and appear often in carpets of the period, echoing their use in painting and architectural decoration.

Qilins, Chinese mythological beasts, appear in some early Mughal carpets; the Met traces these motifs, along with cloud bands, to Safavid Persian art.