Evening star., 1899-04-01
HOW TO CHOOSE A RUG
A Woman Artists Taste and Knowledge
Served Well.
Old Ones More Valued Than New, Beo
cause Time MeIiows the Tints-
Why Some Are Glossy.
written for The Evening Star.

money in your pocketbook and go out TO
buy your rug-that is. if you have the
money.
This was the theory which the De Flats
believed in until circumstances compelled
them to wrestIe with that question.
The De Flats, after varied experience
with carpets and mattings. decided on
moving into a house provided with polished
floors, to cover them with the scant but
artistic floor coverings OF the orientais in
stead of with moquette. body brussels or
ingram.
Miss Cordelia De Flat was intrusted with
the price of one rug and sent out one morn
ing bright and early for the city. armed
with conviction OF her own abilities and
the parting instructions OF the family She
was to buy just one rug-that for an upper
bed room-and IL results did not Justify the
trust her next younger sister or the whole
family would take hand at the rug buy
ing until the floors were covered
Miss De Flats first efforts were among
the second-rate stores. Then, in despair
she sought the studio of a woman artist
she took IL for granted that the woman
artist knew about rugs because she had so
many of them in her ninth-story den.
Real Joy i'm Possession.
And did she know?
BLESS you," said the lady of palettes and
paints, she put the last artistic touch to
the halo of a purple angel, there's nothing
L enjoy better than a hunt through the
shops for rugs, especially when l don't
have to pay the bill, See that beautiful
Iran in the cornerl Real camers hair, you
know! Aunt Angelina sent me the price OF
a new gown a present, and / added a
little to 1t, fixed over last seasons shirt
waist and skirt and got that beauty. I'm
glad you are taking to rugs. They are
cheaper than carpets, anyway. For in
stance, a good brussels or moquette carpet
would cost you all told 500 to 500. A
very fair rug can be bought for SEQ $40,
and will last a lifetime. Rugs wear lot
better than carpets ever do because they
are not tackled down. If rugs were stretch
ed out and tackled upon the floor, they, too,
would wear badly.
1.-The stretching makes the carpet offer the
same taut surface to be trodden upon in
stead of sliding about, so that all parts OF
the material are equally worn. Besides. it
is very easy to repair or have repaired a
tear or worn place in a rug. At the first
class shops they can take the rug and
weave in a new piece, so that the rug Is
quite good as new-in fact better, for
time tones down the colors into more artis-
tic shades and shadows.
Old Rugs Made Valuable.
'why, bless you, in the east merchants
go about like the genius in the Arabian
Nights crying old Crugs) for new! These
merchants get the old rugs cheap and fix
them up. Clean them? oh. what a Philis-
tine you arel No. They only darn up the
rents and weave in a bit here or there
where they are worn. Why, don't you know
artists are just crazy to get those old rugs
whose shades have been mellowed by time?
Why, I've bought a lovely Persian rug for
SS that was worth so merely because 1t
was not new and damaged. Yes; / got most
of my rugs that way.
"Oh, Of course. one must be an expert to
know how to buy rugs that way! How do
/ tell the real rugs from the limitations so
cleverly manufactured in this country? By
the colors, to be sure! The western world
has not the color secrets of the east. They
dye their rugs with aniline dyes, while the
easterns use vegetable dyes. You can tell
the imitation from the real by taking the
material between the fingers and trying
whether the color will come off, If ii does
come off, the rug is an imitation, and should
be Stunned, because the colors will fade or
rub off. The colors of the real oriental rug
never fade.
Tramped by Oriental Feet.
81 suppose you have noticed the beauti-
full gloss on some of the best oriental rugs.
The homemade rug never has it. No free
born American would take off his shoes and
stockings the oriental does and tramp
the pile of the rug down with perspiring
feet. 1t is the perspiration and the pressing
that are to be thanked for the gloss"
"oh, save me from glossy rugs!'' ex-
claimed Miss DE Flat. Mother would not
have one of the nasty things in the houser'
"Pshawr commented the studio young
woman, with all an artists contempt for
the scruples and qualms of the Philistine.
Then the young women put on their hats
and went to the different shops, pricing
everything. but with no intention of buying
at anybody but Sharp & o.'s, the great
dealers in oriental goods.
Gorgeous Eastern CoIoring.
1t chanced that the Sharps were having
an exhibition of fine rugs, just brought
back from the far east by their Persian
buyer. They We're marvellous in tone and
weird in pattern.
One thinks of the rugs of the elst as
magnificent fabrics, prepared for Worship
ers to kneel upon in prayer to Allah or
TO Ormuzd, to Barhma or to Buddha, as
in their divers tongues the great world of
the orient addresses God. Instead, there
are rugs for the palaces of the mobiles and
rulers, rugs for the houses of the rich mer-
chants and well-to-do citizens of leisure,
woven to suit the individual taste of the
buyer.
The length of time it takes to make ore
of the rugs may be easily computed when
1t Is known that one man can make twen-
ty-five stitches in minute, and that TO a
square inch are 625 stitches
Stories Woven in Them.
The rugs at the exhibition included mar
velous rugs in which were woven couplets
ard quatrains from Ssdi. from Omar Khay-
yam and from all the favorite poets of the
Persians. Stories from the Arabian
Nights were pictured on other rugs, and
whole tales from the mythology of Persia.
One rug, in the center of which was woven
a picture of the Virgin and the Child, the
Virgin with pale green hair against a
re seate background and the Child clad in a
blue frock. had been woven 10 commsmo-
rate the escape of the weavers from a
fierce man-eating tiger. They happened to
be native Christians. On the border of the
rug. which was bright blue, the efforts of
the tiger to make meal of the industrious
orientals were feelingly pictured. In an
other rug of Kirmian was woven the his
tory of twelve rulers of the province. This
rug was an immense affair, and was doubt
less intended to adorn the palace of their
SUCCESSORS That the successors had no
room for any praise but their own was
shown by the fact that after one hundred
years the rug had been disposed of to the
Christians by old junk man.
And the rug that Miss De Flat bought in
this soulful and interesting shopi Well, it
had subdued ground Of red, and was done
in geometrical design in rather conven-
tional eolors. She paid s75 for IL, and when
the DE Flats calculated that IL would last