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The vast majority of the standard new Chinese carpets produced today are in one basic style known by a variety of names, such as Tienstin, Super-washed, 90 lines, which tends to be confusing and misleading since they are used to describe a huge range of qualities; the so-called standard Chinese is one of the least standardised of all the carpets of the Orient.
Among the types produced in large quantities the best known is the contract-quality super-washed closed-back 90 line 5/8 pile mill-spun merchandise.
These carpets are made in and around large area of north-eastern China, only fine mill-spun yarn is used in this super grade, with high quality chrome dyes and chemical washing which gives the carpets an extraordinary brilliance. The description 90 lines means 90 pairs of warp strings across 12 inches of the back of the carpet, which indicates a fineness of about 90,000 knots /m2(60 knots/in 2) and 5/8 pile means the wool on the front of the carpet is 5/8 in(16 mm) long. Close-back indicates the actual warp and weft construction. The warps can either lie side by side, or almost side by side, with little or no ribbing on the back or the warps may be staggered, which gives the carpet a ridged back.
After US embargo of Persian rugs most of the carpets merchants in US took Persian designs rugs to China to reproduced. Apart from traditional Aubusson, floral, Peking design, China now produced all kinds Persian rugs and carpets, although they are not considered to be investment. The advent of new designs such as Ziegler, Agra and others, and especially the lifting of the US embargo on Persian goods, have had a negative effect on Chinese rugs exports
Currently over 28,000,000 people are engaged in producing hand made rugs in China.
The investment value may be low compared to Persian; however, from a purely practical point of view Chinese rugs are good value for money, soundly constructed, of outstandingly good materials and refreshingly free of those deliberate mistakes, which are endearing in some Persian carpets but which in others are no more than evidence of plain shoddy workmanship |
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