Once upon a time, there was an architect in New York who saw one of our luscious mohair samples, and decided that it would be perfect for one of their projects. The client required a distinctive hand-knotted carpet for a rather stately room with some challenging architectural constraints.

After intensive consultation and discussion, the architect contracted with us to produce the carpet. Although we have the capacity to do design work in-house, we asked our Irish partner, Donegal Carpets, to graph the design for weaving. The client had selected one of Donegal's oldest documented designs, generally referred to as the Fintona, and he liked the idea that the artwork would be produced by the venerable company. While Colm drafted and graphed the design in Ireland, we worked on the wool and color specifications in our Minnesota studio.

After the design work was done and the colors approved, we were ready to purchase the wool and begin the dyeing and weaving. Mohair is a specialty fiber, the fleece of the Angora goat, and most commercially available mohair comes from South Africa, with minor production in Australia and Texas. However, during the interim when the design work and coloring was being done, an Italian textile company had bought up both the currently available mohair clip and mohair futures, which caused the market price of mohair to double.

So, we have a company in New York commissioning a firm in Minnesota to produce a carpet in India from design work created in Ireland, using a specialty fiber sourced from South Africa, whose world market price increased dramatically due to the actions of one company in Italy. It's not quite like a butterfly's sneeze producing hurricanes a month later, but you get the idea.

Undaunted by the prospect of bad carpet karma based on all the preceding events, we went on to the weaving stage.... but not without some trepidation. The radial curve needed to shape the carpet requires a degree of precision that's technically difficult for the hand-knotting process to achieve. However, we thought that between the architect's detailed calculations, the meticulous design work, and daily oversight of the actual weaving, we were up to the challenge.

Below is a picture of the carpet on loom. It looks great so far:

I'll post the sequel as soon as we have pictures of the carpet in situ.

Interlude: A Brief History Lesson
Design information and history courtesy of Christie's:

Location: New York, Rockefeller Plaza
Sale Date: December 15, 2004
Lot Number: 142
Estimate: $40,000-60,000
Hammer Price: $62,140

A DONEGAL CARPET
The design attributed to the Silver Studio, woven for Liberty & Co. c. 1900/1905 The maize field with an enlarged trellis of red-russet leaves, golden vinery and sky blue flower clusters overall within a similar border of bold leaves and flower blossoms. Approximately 18 ft. 8 in. x 14 ft. 10 in. (569 x 432 cm.) Provenance: Christie's London, April 11, 1990, lot 186 Literature: Malcolm Haslam,Arts and Crafts Carpets, 1991, p. 121.

A carpet to this design was exhibited by Liberty & Co. at their "Irish Carpet Exhibition", held at the Grafton Galleries, London in March 1903 (see photograph above, reproduced from The Studio 1903, Vol. XXVIII, p. 286.)Fifteen Donegal carpets were shown at the Grafton Galleries; the short contemporary report in The Studio comments that 'these Irish carpets possess technical qualities identical with those of the old-fashioned Turkish and Persian rugs and carpets. Like their eastern prototypes, they are hand-woven and hand-tufted, and they display an individuality which no power loom could produce.' In his 1991 book Haslam describes the present design as the "Fintona". Haslam later suggested that, based on the descriptions from the unillustrated Liberty booklet, Irish Hand-Made Carpets,published shortly after the Grafton Gallery exhibition, this name actually referred to another design. (See footnote to Lot 153, Arts and Crafts and Architectural Designs, Christie's New York, December 12, 1992.) The attribution of the design to the Silver Studio is well supported on stylistic grounds, and bears comparison to known designs from the Silver Studio, several of which have been attributed to Archibald Knox. cf. A London Design Studio 1880 - 1963.The Silver Studio Collection, 1980, pp. 103/4, no. 199

The only documentation we have of the original carpet is the visual reference provided by black & white photographs from 1902. The photos were originally taken with a wide-angle lens, and some areas of the photographs are overexposed. This makes it quite a challenge to determine the scale, size, and shape of some of the design elements as we try to replicate the original carpet.

Part of the reason for our trip to Milwaukee was to inspect the architectural detail of the Regency Room, particularly the mantel and the recently restored ceiling. This really paid off, and provided us with a plethora of ideas to present to the Mansion's architectural historial, John Eastberg, and historic interiors expert Gail Winkler, who is consulting on the project.

1902 photograph of the Regency Room, with draft design mockup:

Liz Flaig, the curatorial administrator of the archives, and the other staff were as cordially enthusiastic as we could wish. We were particularly interested, of course, in carpet and textile designs, so we focused on those. We looked at many original drawings and documentation for Niedecken interiors in the midwest, including several of those done in collaboration with Frank Lloyd Wright.

Archivist Tim Ladwig and the others were very patient with us while we looked for information that was arcane even by museum standards. During one of the more suspenseful episodes, Tim cut a watercolor rendering of a Robie House carpet away from its backing to view the pencilled notes we were sure were on the reverse. It was anticlimactic; what we were looking for wasn't there. But that's the nature of research.

One of the highlights, for me, was to physically get my hands on a carpet designed by Niedecken for the Adam Mayer house, which was produced by the European firm of I. Ginzkey in the early 20th century. (I'm researching the extant carpets produced by Ginzkey, and there aren't many.) Looking at the black and white photos of the Mayer house interiors, and knowing the timeframe (it was completed in 1907) you probably wouldn't predict the color palette of the carpet; it prefigures midcentury trends by about forty years. But then, Niedecken was a genius. And a heckuva nice guy, too, by all accounts.

No story of a trip to the museum would be complete without a mention of the striking architecture of Santiago Calatrava. So I mentioned it.

Now, on to the Pabst Mansion, and our meeting with architectural historian (and guest curator for the MAM's Niedecken exhibition) John Eastberg.

Davis Freud made two whirwind trips to Manhattan in July, characterized by 12 hours of back-to-back meetings, excellent food, visiting old friends and making some new ones. They had breakfast inside Richard Rogers' stunning Hearst Tower with Georgia Fleming, Hearst Publications editor for luxury products at Veranda magazine (shown in front); met with several architects and designers to discuss projects; and consulted with ABC Carpet & Home regarding representation of the GuildCraft line.

A highlight of the second trip was meeting with Alan Wanzenberg to discuss projects and to request feedback on product ideas and samples. Alan and his late partner, Jed Johnson, together developed an aesthetic known for its expression of opulent restraint. Alan himself owns an original Donegal carpet, the design known today as the "Fintona", in a luscious sorbet palette of greens, golds, and soft corals. ]]> tag:tesselar.net,2006:/blogs/davisfreud//7.87 2006-07-16T00:53:17Z 2007-10-23T12:46:13Z