WONDERFUL CARPETS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 364, 4 March 1932, Page 6

WONDERFUL CARPETS.

Antique Products of Wilton Manufacturers. A fascinating display of antique carpets manufactured by Wilton and in Brussels is at present on view in one of the Colombo Street windows of Ballantync and Co. These carpets have been loaned by an English manufacturer ,and are worth their weight in gold, as they cannot be replaced, or even reproduced. The pieces are heavily insured. They represent for the Wilton manufacturers the highest pinnacle of their long career, and were made about 1860. Wilton carpets, though they still hold a foremost position among the great manufacturers, cannot now make the peerless creations which are exhibited. The modern demand is for more or less futuristic design, and the old carpets would not harmonise, despite their magnificent colourings, with presentday interiors. Some of the carpets displayed were manufactured for Royalty, and bear regal crowns and ensigna. At te rear of the window is an Imperial Axminster carpet, the latest production o fthese manufacturers. It contrasts strangely with the old carpets, with its subdued colours and design of angles and floral work. Inside the shop is a magnificent reproduction of a Persian carpet 350 years old. The original is held by a collector in Paris, and the Axminster manufacturers copied it faithfully in the minutest details. The colouring is practically unmatchable, and Ballantyne's had to send the carpet to England to get suitable fabrics for curtains and hangings Another reproduction, also an Axmfnster is copied from one of the carpets in the Queen’s dolls’ house. There is copied from a Persian antique. 1 he Duke of y ork owns the only other reproduction from this carpet. A feature of Persian carpets is the wonderful colours and design introduced. Some :>i these carpets, hand woven, have nore than 220 knots to the inch of ive*ve. Each manufacturer has a distinctive weave. Some of the old Brussels carpets will wear for forty or fifty years and this is the case, too, with English .arpets. IHe English manufacturers lave a ways led in making carpets, and -hey still hold a position in the front ank, which has been assailed time and l S a »n by foreign competition. The world over, English carpeting is taken is the standard by which others are udged.