The Rug Library

Striped dhurries are among the most common in India, including the multicoloured jamkalams of Bhavani in Tamil Nadu and the blue-and-white nili chitti of Uttar Pradesh.

Scholarship on Deccan carpets is still being built; a Met volume on Deccan court arts includes an essay on creating a corpus of Deccani carpets and identifies previously unattributed pieces.

For older or fragile rugs, the Institute of Conservation suggests a small hand-held vacuum used in the direction of the pile, with a brushless attachment and avoiding fringes.

Dust and grit left embedded in rug pile attract insects and can become 'cemented' into the carpet if not removed, according to the Institute of Conservation.

For European buyers who used carpets on tables, Egyptian workshops made unusual shapes, including square, round and cross-shaped carpets.

Eri silk is produced mainly in Assam, Nagaland and Meghalaya, with smaller production in states such as Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh.

Raw silk consists of two proteins: an inner fibroin filament (about 75% by weight) and an outer gummy sericin coat (about 25%).

Asiatic 'desi' cotton (Gossypium arboreum) is valued in India for its climate resilience and tolerance of pests, disease and drought-type stresses.

In some Persian weaving regions knots are tied with the help of a hook-pointed knife called a gollab.

The Central Wool Development Board was constituted in July 1987 with its headquarters at Jodhpur, Rajasthan, to bring together the varied interests of India's wool industry under an integrated policy approach.

The surface of a wool fibre is covered with overlapping cuticle scales, arranged like roof shingles, which help wool fibres lock together when felted.

Construction of Agra Central Jail began in 1849 under William Woodcock of the Bengal Civil Service, and by the late 19th century the prison had become a major exporter of carpets.

As superintendent of Agra Central Jail, Dr John W. Tyler developed the prison into an important centre for manufacturing high-quality carpets.

For the 1886 Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London, 34 Indian artisans, mostly inmates of Agra Jail, travelled to Britain with superintendent J. W. Tyler to demonstrate crafts including carpet weaving.

Agra durries were granted Geographical Indication status in 2013, according to India’s Ministry of Tourism.

A local tradition recorded for Agra durries connects them with Shauripur, about 72 km from Agra, where such rugs are said to have been used to welcome Lord Krishna.

Antique Agra carpets are typically densely knotted on a cotton foundation, with Persian-derived designs such as medallions and palmettes often redrawn at a larger, more spacious scale.

Bhadohi in Uttar Pradesh is often called India’s 'Carpet City' and is described as the largest hand-knotted carpet-weaving hub in South Asia.

The 'Hand made Carpet of Bhadohi' is a registered Geographical Indication of Uttar Pradesh, with its GI certificate dated 2010.

Bhadohi district, also known as Sant Ravidas Nagar, was carved out of the western part of Varanasi district in 1994 and is the smallest district by area in Uttar Pradesh.

Bhadohi weavers use both the symmetric Ghiordes (Turkish) knot and the asymmetric Sehna (Persian) knot, producing woollen pile carpets across a wide range of qualities, reportedly from about 30 to 300 knots per square inch.

Bhadohi’s hand-knotted carpets are woven on vertical wooden looms, with thick cotton and woollen yarns used for the warp and wool for the knotted pile.

The Indian Institute of Carpet Technology in Bhadohi was established by the Ministry of Textiles, Government of India, in 2001 to provide technical education for the carpet sector.

Local tradition holds that Persian master weavers travelling in Akbar’s time settled at the village of Madhosingh near present-day Bhadohi and taught carpet knotting to local people.