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The A. & M. of Karagheusian company opened its door selling imported oriental rugs in New York City in 1899, founded by two brothers. The small rug shop had a uniquely lavish showroom, decorated by the local, elegant, Tiffany Studios. By 1904, the imported oriental rug market could not sustain an equal supply and demand. The brothers purchased a vacant shirt factory in Freehold, New Jersey, and brought in 60 brussels and wilton power looms, plus the weavers to run them, from Kidderminister, England, the capital of the British rug industry. The American company became world reknowned within the next 6 years. Their showroom window front won critic recognition in New York and Britian for the luxiourious and beautiful decor of both rugs, lamps and decorative items available to compliment the finest collection of arts & crafts, asthetic movement, and later, the art deco pieces and weavings. In the mid-teens Karagheusian was the first Amercian rug manufacturer to feature a Chinese bird motif, which took the market by storm and began the American version of the "Chinese Art Deco movement". Their ability of pattern design and the elegance of their Tiffany showrooms, glowed with soft evening light that accentuated the most beautiful rugs and decorative pieces available. This high quality Deluxe Gulistan Karagheusian wilton was an extremely expensive "seamless" jacquard woven rug which was parallelled only by the Whittall "anglo-persian" wilton. This Karagheusian offered a higher pile height with vivid colours in an exceptional quality long staple worsted wool. Karagheusian's wiltons and gulistan carpets would be one of the top four American made oriental rugs to sustain the market up to and beyond WW2. In the 1950's, the Karagheusian elegance continued to be recognized as Elizabeth Taylor and Christian Dior appeared in their ads in the New York Times and many other major publications. Eventually, Karagheusian adapted to the new fiber and decorative styles of a post war economy and these better quality pieces became only history of the company's earlier legacy. Their mills would close in 1965, but a good 25 long years after this type of rug was nolonger in production. Extremely few of these pieces have survived in such wonderful condition. Most are only found in fragments, partial strips, and threadbare with little to no pattern remaining. Here, we have a treasure and an exquisit quality that has more than withstood its test of time -- and in exceptional like new condition. CONDITION: The rug has an exceptional good consistent pile over the entire rug without any low/threadbare worn areas. The rug has NOT been cleaned yet, and is shown here before cleaning. The rug can be purchased now and cleaned as soon as the weather will allow, or the buyer can have the rug uncleaned. CLEANING: We provide professionally hand cleaning by our own conservation team with a restorative thorough washing adhering to National Institute of Textiles and AIC We do not use ANY optical enhancers of any kind (natural or chemical). Optical enhancers damage and pull dye to the surface of the rug's fibres, slowly stripping colour and character from the wool as the rug continues to age. Beware of descriptions claiming use of such materials and harsh cleaning methods to "brighten, add a sheen, or antique wash" the rugs -- all these methods deteriorate and damage these wonderful vintage and antique pieces beyond repair.
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