Oriental Carpet Manufacturers

Last updated June 16, 2019

The Oriental Carpet Manufacturers (OCM) was a London-based company involved in the production of, and trade with, Oriental carpets. Established in 1907/8 in Istanbul, the company set up and controlled their own carpet manufactures in the central Anatolian region around the town of Konya, and from 1911 onwards, in the Hamadan Province in northwestern Iran. In 1968 it was sold, and merged with one of its former affiliates, the Eastern Kayyam Company. From 1924 until 1948, OCM was led by Arthur Cecil Edwards, who, after retiring, wrote a text book on Persian Carpets, which is still in print today.^[1]

London is the capital and largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, as well as the largest city within the European Union. Standing on the River Thames in the south-east of England, at the head of its 50-mile (80 km) estuary leading to the North Sea, London has been a major settlement for two millennia. Londinium was founded by the Romans. The City of London, London's ancient core − an area of just 1.12 square miles (2.9 km²) and colloquially known as the Square Mile − retains boundaries that follow closely its medieval limits. The City of Westminster is also an Inner London borough holding city status. Greater London is governed by the Mayor of London and the London Assembly.

Istanbul, formerly known as Byzantium and Constantinople, is the most populous city in Turkey and the country's economic, cultural and historic center. Istanbul is a transcontinental city in Eurasia, straddling the Bosporus strait between the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea. Its commercial and historical center lies on the European side and about a third of its population lives in suburbs on the Asian side of the Bosporus. With a total population of around 15 million residents in its metropolitan area, Istanbul is one of the world's most populous cities, ranking as the world's fourth largest city proper and the largest European city. The city is the administrative center of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality. Istanbul is a bridge between the East and West.

The Central Anatolia Region is a geographical region of Turkey.

Historical background

Rugs were traditionally woven in Anatolia. Surviving carpets in Anatolian mosques have been dated back to the 13th century Seljuk Sultanate of Rum.^[2]^[3]^[4] Their depiction in a large number of Renaissance paintings demonstrates that carpets and rugs were already exported to Western Europe from the 14th century onwards, where they were regarded as highly prestigious luxury goods. With the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the number of people increased in the Western world who could afford buying oriental rugs. The regions around the towns of Konya and Uşak were the traditional centers of carpet manufacturing in the Ottoman Empire. Until 1870–1880, about 75% of all carpets exported to Western Europe were manufactured in these regions. The Ottoman government promoted the commercial production and export of rugs by setting up rug exhibitions, quality controls, and by establishing schools of arts and crafts in Konya and Kırşehir.^[5]

Anatolia, also known as Asia Minor, Asian Turkey, the Anatolian peninsula or the Anatolian plateau, is the westernmost protrusion of Asia, which makes up the majority of modern-day Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Armenian Highlands to the east and the Aegean Sea to the west. The Sea of Marmara forms a connection between the Black and Aegean seas through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits and separates Anatolia from Thrace on the European mainland.

The Seljuk Empire or the Great Seljuq Empire was a high medieval Turko-Persian Sunni Muslim empire, originating from the Qiniq branch of Oghuz Turks. At its greatest extent, the Seljuk Empire controlled a vast area stretching from western Anatolia and the Levant to the Hindu Kush in the east, and from Central Asia to the Persian Gulf in the south.

The Sultanate of Rûm (also known as the Rûm sultanate, Anatolian Seljuk Sultanate, Sultanate of Iconium, Anatolian Seljuk State or Turkey Seljuk State was a Turko-Persian Sunni Muslim state established in the parts of Anatolia which had been conquered from the Byzantine Empire by the Seljuk Empire, which was established by the Seljuk Turks. The name Rûm was a synonym for Greek, as it remains in modern Turkish, although it derives from the Arabic name for Romans, الرُّومُ ar-Rūm, itself a loan from Greek Ῥωμαῖοι, "Romans"; ie. citizens superordinate to Latin-speakers.

As the demand increased by around 1830, Ottoman as well as European and U.S. American trading corporations expanded their commercial activities. European trading companies in Istanbul and Smyrna established their own manufacturing facilities in competition to the traditional Ottoman rug trading organizations based in Uşak. These companies provided the materials, such as pre-dyed yarns, and issued detailed instructions about the patterns to be woven according to the buyers' taste and market demand. Carpets were woven either by home workers, or in workshops. Working conditions and wages were poor even at that time. Workers in the OCM workshops were working at faster rates, and had lower wages compared to the Uşak manufacturers.^[5] By around 1910, the export from the traditional carpet-producing regions was reduced to merely 10% of the total volume of trade.^[6]

Sweatshop Workplace that has socially unacceptable working conditions

Sweatshop is a pejorative term for a workplace that has very poor, socially unacceptable working conditions. The work may be difficult, dangerous, climatically challenged or underpaid. Workers in sweatshops may work long hours with low pay, regardless of laws mandating overtime pay or a minimum wage; child labor laws may also be violated. The Fair Labor Association's "2006 Annual Public Report" inspected factories for FLA compliance in 18 countries including Bangladesh, El Salvador, Colombia, Guatemala, Malaysia, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, China, India, Vietnam, Honduras, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, and the US. The U.S. Department of Labor's "2015 Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor" found that "18 countries did not meet the International Labour Organization's recommendation for an adequate number of inspectors."

History of the OCM

The Oriental Carpet Manufacturers Company was established by a group of British merchants at the end of 1907/beginning of 1908 in Smyrna. Looms and other technical equipment were procured in Germany and Austria. The first company-owned production facilities were set up in the Western Anatolian Manisa Province. Already in 1912, OCM controlled the major part of all looms operating in the Konya Vilayet, where 15–20,000 weavers, mostly women, worked at circa 12,000 looms.^[5] In 1911, OCM expanded their activities to Iran. Arthur C. Edwards established a carpet factory in the town of Hamadan, where the production of traditional Persian carpets had totally ceased at that time. In 1924, Edwards moved to London and became OCM's managing director. He expanded the company's commercial activities in the United States. In order to lower the production costs, he set up factories in India, where wages were lower at that time. OCM shares were still listed at the London Stock Exchange in the 1960s, but came under increasing pressure from other companies which produced low-quality carpets and machine-made rugs at mass-market prices. In 1986, the company was finally dissolved, and sold to the Eastern Kayyam Company, one of its former associates.^[7]

Manisa Province is a province in western Turkey. Its neighboring provinces are İzmir to the west, Aydın to the south, Denizli to the southeast, Uşak to the east, Kütahya to the northeast, and Balıkesir to the north. The city of Manisa is the seat and capital of the province. The traffic code is 45.

The Vilayet of Konya was a first-level administrative division (vilayet) of the Ottoman Empire in Asia Minor which included the whole, or parts of, the ancient regions of Pamphylia, Pisidia, Phrygia, Lycaonia, Cilicia and Cappadocia.

Hamadān or Hamedān is the capital city of Hamadan Province of Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 473,149, in 127,812 families.

Technical characteristics and pattern designs

Symmetrical, or "Turkish" carpet knots in a double-wefted foundation (wefts shown in red) Knopen 001.jpg — Symmetrical, or "Turkish" carpet knots in a double-wefted foundation (wefts shown in red)

In his textbook on Persian carpets, still famous amongst carpet collectors today, A. C. Edwards has documented how he set up OCM's rug production in the western Iranian town of Hamadan. This region was characterized by a tradition of rural village rug weaving, no rugs were woven in the town itself by 1912. Edwards started with eight looms, set up in a small workshop. By 1948, when Edwards retired, more than 1,000 looms were active in the town, with the largest workshop operating 120 looms. He describes in detail the technical and quality criteria which OCM had defined for their production. Several factors were taken into account: The type of knot which was to be used (i.e., symmetrical or "turkish" vs. asymmetrical or "persian"), the knot density, twisting and thickness of the yarns used for warps, wefts, and pile, the section of appropriate colours, the patterns and motifs of the rug design, always considering the costs of goods and labour.^[8]

Edwards opted for a woven foundation with double wefts, similar in structure to the rugs woven in the Kurdish town of Bijar, but with cotton warps and wefts instead of the woolen yarn used in Bijar rugs. The pile was to be knotted with the symmetrical knot, which was traditionally used in the region, and would provide a thicker and heavier pile as compared to asymmetrical knots. A series of prototypes were woven which. as a result, showed that a knot density of 10 x 11 knots per square inch was optimal for weaving a sufficiently dense pattern. High-quality wool was procured from kurdish nomads from the Kermanshah Province. Initially the wool was carded and spun by hand. Later on, carding was done by a machine, but the yarn was always spun by hand. The yarn was dyed with synthetic dyes, the dyeing process was supervised by an Armenian master who had been trained in Germany. However, the resulting colours were of inferior quality, so the company soon switched to traditional Persian natural dyes. The patterns of the design were derived from classical 16th century Safavid period Persian designs, later to be modified according to the U.S. American buyers' taste. To the resulting product, Edwards gave the trade name "Alvānd" (after the nearby Alvand mountains), in order to distinguish the OCM rug from the traditional rugs woven in the Hamadan province.^[8]

Bījār is a city and capital of Bijar County, Kurdistan Province, Iran. At the 2011 census, its population was 47,926, in 14,970 families. Ethnically the population is predominantly Kurdish-speaking both Sunni and Shia Kurds.

Knot density is a traditional measure for quality of handmade or knotted pile carpets. It refers to the number of knots, or knot count, per unit of surface area - typically either per square inch (kpsi) or per square centimeter (kpsc), but also per decimeter or meter. Number of knots per unit area is directly proportional to the quality of carpet. Density may vary from 25 to over 1000 kpsi, or 4 to over 155 kpsc, where ≤80 kpsi is poor quality, 120 to 330 kpsi medium to good, and ≥330 kpsi is very good quality. The inverse, knot ratio, is also used to compare characteristics. Knot density = warp×weft while knot ratio = warp/weft. For comparison: 100,000/square meter = 1,000/square decimeter = 65/square inch = 179/gereh.

Kermanshah Province Province in 4th Region, Iran

Kermanshah Province is one of the 31 provinces of Iran. The province was known from 1969 to 1986 as Kermanshahan and from 1986 to 1995 as Bakhtaran. According to a 2014 segmentation by the Ministry of Interior it is center of Region 4, with the region's central secretariat located at the province's capital city, Kermanshah. A majority of people in Kermanshah Province are Shia, and there are Sunni and Yarsanist minority groups.

Related Research Articles

A carpet is a textile floor covering typically consisting of an upper layer of pile attached to a backing. The pile was traditionally made from wool, but, since the 20th century, synthetic fibers such as polypropylene, nylon or polyester are often used, as these fibers are less expensive than wool. The pile usually consists of twisted tufts which are typically heat-treated to maintain their structure. The term "carpet" is often used interchangeably with the term "rug", although the term "carpet" can be applied to a floor covering that covers an entire house, whereas a "rug" is generally no bigger than a single room, and traditionally does not even span from one wall to another, and is typically not even attached as part of the floor.

A Persian carpet or Persian rug, also known as Iranian carpet, is a heavy textile made for a wide variety of utilitarian and symbolic purposes and produced in Iran, for home use, local sale, and export. Carpet weaving is an essential part of Persian culture and Iranian art. Within the group of Oriental rugs produced by the countries of the so-called "rug belt", the Persian carpet stands out by the variety and elaborateness of its manifold designs.

A kilim is a flat tapestry-woven carpet or rug traditionally produced in countries of the former Persian Empire, Iran, Azerbaijan and Turkic countries of Central Asia. Kilims can be purely decorative or can function as prayer rugs. Modern kilims are popular floor-coverings in Western households.

Uşak is a city in the interior part of the Aegean Region of Turkey. The city has a population of 500,000 and is the capital of Uşak Province. The city was previously known by its Greek name of Ousakeion/Ουσάκειον.

Uşak carpets, Ushak carpets or Oushak Carpets are Turkish carpets that use a particular family of designs, called by convention after the city of Uşak, Turkey – one of the larger towns in Western Anatolia, which was a major center of rug production from the early days of the Ottoman Empire, into the early 20th century.

An oriental rug is a heavy textile made for a wide variety of utilitarian and symbolic purposes and produced in “Oriental countries” for home use, local sale, and export.

Pile weave is a form of textile created by weaving.These fabrics are characterized by a pile, a looped or tufted surface that extends above the foundation or ground weave. The pile is formed by supplemental yarn running in the direction of the length of the fabric or the width of the fabric. Pile weaves include velvet and corduroy fabrics and machine-woven Berber carpets.

Anatolian rug is a term of convenience, commonly used today to denote rugs and carpets woven in Anatolia and its adjacent regions. Geographically, its area of production can be compared to the territories which were historically dominated by the Ottoman Empire. It denotes a knotted, pile-woven floor or wall covering which is produced for home use, local sale, and export. Together with the flat-woven kilim, Anatolian rugs represent an essential part of the regional culture, which is officially understood as the Culture of Turkey today, and derives from the ethnic, religious and cultural pluralism of one of the most ancient centres of human civilisation.

Hereke is a town in Kocaeli province, Turkey, located to the north of the Gulf of İzmit, near Istanbul. It is famous for Hereke carpets. It was bound to Gebze district until transferring to Körfez in 1987 and had municipality status until 2009. It consists of 17 Ağustos, Agah Ateş, Cumhuriyet, Hacı Akif, Kışladüzü, Şirinyalı and Yukarı Hereke mahalles. It can be reached by minibus, public bus, Adapazarı Express train, ship and sea bus.

A knotted-pile carpet is a carpet containing raised surfaces, or piles, from the cut off ends of knots woven between the warp and woof. The Ghiordes/Turkish knot and the Senneh/Persian knot, typical of Turkish carpets and Persian carpets, are the two primary knots. A flat or tapestry woven carpet, without pile, is a kilim. A pile carpet is influenced by width and number of warp and weft, pile height, knots used, and knot density.

A Pakistani rug is a type of handmade floor-covering textile traditionally made in Pakistan.

Armenians wove Lilihans in Lilihan village in what used to be called Kamareh district in Iran. 1 The term Lilihan is better known in the US, in Europe it is not as widely used.2

A Sarouk rug is a type of Persian rug from Markazi Province in Iran. Sarouk rugs are those woven in the village of Saruk and also the city of Arak and the surrounding countryside.

The Dilmaghani family, the oldest existing manufacturers of hand knotted carpets and oriental rugs, can be traced back to the 1850s Qajar Dynasty, Persia. In an industry which largely produces untitled items often identifiable only by experts, the history and lineage of any name relating to specific types of rugs for so many decades is unusual. Through the 1960s, the Dilmaghani family was still designing, manufacturing and importing Persian carpets from Iran to the United States. Dilmaghani is seen as an important connection of 19th and 20th century Persian rug and carpet production in and around the cities of Tabriz and Kermān. Dilmaghani remains among the best known names of branded 19th, 20th and 21st century hand knotted carpets.

DOBAG is the Turkish acronym for "Doğal Boya Araştırma ve Geliştirme Projesi" - the Natural Dye Research and Development Project. The project aims at reviving the traditional Turkish art and craft of carpet weaving. It provides inhabitants of rural village in Anatolia – mostly female – with a regular source of income. The DOBAG initiative marks the return to the traditional rug production by using hand-spun wool dyed with natural colours, which was subsequently adopted in other rug-producing countries.

The name Transylvanian rug is used as a term of convenience to denote a cultural heritage of 15th–17th century Islamic rugs, mainly of Ottoman origin, which have been preserved in Transylvanian Protestant churches. The corpus of Transylvanian rugs constitutes one of the largest collections of Ottoman Anatolian rugs outside the Islamic world.

Arthur Cecil Edwards was a dealer in and authority on Persian carpets. He was managing director of the Oriental Carpet Manufacturers based in Turkey.

Carpet weaving in Isparta developed towards the end of the 19th century. Isparta (Sparta) in Pisidia was one of the late regions to develop a carpet-weaving tradition. The Greek Orthodox population played a vital role in this development. As they were keen merchants, they linked their carpet production to the activity of the Oriental Carpet Manufacturers, a major company for carpets' production and export from the Ottoman Empire to the European countries and the United States. Pioneers in this process were the Isparta-born and of Greek Orthodox stock carpet-makers such as Prodromos Gregoriades, Iordanis and Damianos Styloglou, Philippos Kahramanoglou, Socrates and Damian Kahramanoglou, Minas Kehagioglou, Theodoris and Ioannis Papazoglou, Athanasios Pesmazoglou, Nikolaos Soutsoglou etc. Carpet weaving in Asia Minor belongs to a long tradition of carpet weaving, intrinsically related to the nomadic life of the turkic tribes which settled this region gradually from the 11th century onwards. As the nomads became sedentary, local styles in flat and pile rugs appeared; therefore we now discern styles according to place-names where these styles were more popular, such as Ushak carpet, Bergama Carpets, Konya carpets etc.

A lazy line or section line is a technical feature of weaving which describes visible diagonal joins within a woven textile. It results from interlacing wefts joining adjacent warp sections woven at different times. Successive rows of turnarounds of discontinuous wefts create a diagonal line which, in pile rugs, is best seen from the back side, and from the front side only if the pile is heavily worn. A lazy line is created when the weaver does not finish a rug line by line from one side to the other, but sequentially finishes one area after the other.

References

↑ A. Cecil Edwards (1953). The Persian Carpet: A Survey of the Carpet Weaving Industry of Persia. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co., Ltd. ISBN 978-1-4683-1368-0. Reprint October 2016
↑ Martin, F.R. (1908). A History of Oriental Carpets before 1800 (1 ed.). Vienna: Printed for the author in the I. and R. State and Court Print.
↑ Riefstahl, Rudolf Meyer (December 1931). "Primitive Rugs of the "Konya" type in the Mosque of Beyshehir". The Art Bulletin. 13 (4): 177–220.
↑ Lamm, C.J. (1985). Carpet fragments: The Marby rug and some fragments of carpets found in Egypt (Nationalmuseums skriftserie) (1937 reprint ed.). Swedish National Museum. ISBN 978-91-7100-291-4.
1 2 3 Donald Quataert (1993). Ottoman manufacturing in the age of the industrial revolution. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 134–160. ISBN 978-0-521-89301-5., see: p. 153
↑ Donald Quataert (1993). Ottoman manufacturing in the age of the industrial revolution. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 134–160. ISBN 978-0-521-89301-5., see: p. 154–5
↑ R. P. T. Davenport-Hines, Geoffrey Jones, British Business in Asia since 1860, accessed 9th August 2016
1 2 A. Cecil Edwards (1953). The Persian Carpet: A Survey of the Carpet Weaving Industry of Persia. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co., Ltd. pp. 96–99.

External links

Antony Wynn: The Oriental Carpet Manufacturers Company: Cartels, Trade, Politics & National Identity
Example of an Eastern Kayam/OCM manufactured carpet on the U.K. National Trust website, accessed 9 August 2016

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[1] A. Cecil Edwards (1953). The Persian Carpet: A Survey of the Carpet Weaving Industry of Persia. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co., Ltd. ISBN 978-1-4683-1368-0. Reprint October 2016

[2] Martin, F.R. (1908). A History of Oriental Carpets before 1800 (1 ed.). Vienna: Printed for the author in the I. and R. State and Court Print.

[Beyshehir_fragments-3] Riefstahl, Rudolf Meyer (December 1931). "Primitive Rugs of the "Konya" type in the Mosque of Beyshehir". The Art Bulletin. 13 (4): 177–220.

[Lamm,_1937-4] Lamm, C.J. (1985). Carpet fragments: The Marby rug and some fragments of carpets found in Egypt (Nationalmuseums skriftserie) (1937 reprint ed.). Swedish National Museum. ISBN 978-91-7100-291-4.

[Quataert_P153-5] 1 2 3 Donald Quataert (1993). Ottoman manufacturing in the age of the industrial revolution. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 134–160. ISBN 978-0-521-89301-5., see: p. 153

[6] Donald Quataert (1993). Ottoman manufacturing in the age of the industrial revolution. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 134–160. ISBN 978-0-521-89301-5., see: p. 154–5

[7] R. P. T. Davenport-Hines, Geoffrey Jones, British Business in Asia since 1860, accessed 9th August 2016

[Edwards_P96_99-8] 1 2 A. Cecil Edwards (1953). The Persian Carpet: A Survey of the Carpet Weaving Industry of Persia. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co., Ltd. pp. 96–99.