Imperial Ottoman

Economy · Article

Ottoman Carpet Weaving

The history of Ottoman carpet production in Uşak, Ghiordes, Kula, and Hereke, the court carpets of the palace, and the European market for Turkey carpets.

The carpet is the Ottoman craft object most familiar to Europeans. For more than five centuries the woolen and silk rugs of Anatolia have appeared in European paintings, in the inventories of wealthy households, and in the collections of major museums. The European demand for “Turkey carpets” was a major stimulus to Ottoman production, and the industry itself was organized in village workshops, in urban guilds, and in palace factories. The history of Ottoman carpet weaving is an important part of the broader history of Ottoman crafts and manufacturing, and it touches on nearly every other aspect of the Ottoman economy and trade.

Uşak and the “Holbein carpets”

The earliest Ottoman carpets to reach Europe in large numbers were the large, geometric, medallion rugs of Uşak, in western Anatolia. The so-called “Holbein carpets” — named after the German painter Hans Holbein the Younger, who depicted them in his portraits of the 1530s — are the most famous example. These rugs are characterized by a geometric pattern of large octagons or stars arranged in a grid, with a small prayer-niche design, and they were woven in large numbers from the late fifteenth through the seventeenth century.

The Uşak industry was a village and small-town enterprise, organized in family workshops and concentrated in the towns and villages of the Uşak region. The carpets were sold in the regional bazaars, exported through the port of Smyrna, and shipped to Europe by Venetian, French, and English merchants under the capitulations. The Holbein carpets were a sign of wealth in the European households of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and they appeared in paintings from Italy to England.

A second major Uşak pattern, the so-called “Lotto carpet” (named after the Italian painter Lorenzo Lotto), used a geometric, angular pattern of yellow and red on a dark ground. Lotto carpets were woven from the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries and were particularly popular in Italy. Both the Holbein and the Lotto carpets were produced in the great period of Ottoman urban and palace patronage, and they were influenced by designs from the court workshop and the larger Ottoman trade network.

Ghiordes, Kula, and the village industry

By the seventeenth century the center of Ottoman carpet production had begun to move away from Uşak and toward the villages of western Anatolia. The town of Ghiordes (modern Gördes) and the town of Kula, both in the Manisa region, became major centers of a new type of carpet, woven by village women and sold through merchant houses in Smyrna. The Ghiordes and Kula rugs used bold geometric patterns in bright colors, often red, blue, and yellow, and they were smaller and more varied than the great Uşak medallion rugs.

The village carpet industry was organized differently from the older urban workshops. The carpets were woven in the homes of peasant women, often as a winter occupation, and the merchants of Smyrna financed the production in advance, supplied the wool and dyes, and sold the finished products in Europe. The system was a form of putting-out, similar to the European textile industries of the same period, and it gave the merchants of Smyrna a substantial profit while allowing the village weavers to supplement their income from agriculture.

The Hereke factory

The most prestigious carpets of the later Ottoman period were produced in the Hereke factory, on the shore of the Sea of Marmara. The factory was established in 1841 by Sultan Abdülmecid I, in part to provide carpets for the new Dolmabahçe Palace and in part to revive the court carpet industry that had been a major feature of the older palace workshop. The Hereke factory employed trained designers and weavers, used the finest silk and wool, and produced rugs and carpets of the highest quality. Hereke carpets are recognizable by their fine knotting, their brilliant colors, and their use of classical Ottoman patterns drawn from the great tradition of the older Uşak rugs.

The Hereke factory was a state enterprise, and its products were reserved for the palace and for diplomatic gifts. The factory also produced a number of carpets for export, particularly to the wealthy households of Europe and America, and the European taste for “Turkey carpets” continued to be supplied in part from Hereke. The Hereke factory continued to operate, with various changes, into the republican period, and the firm is still one of the most prestigious carpet makers in Turkey.

The court carpets and the palace tradition

Long before the Hereke factory, the Ottoman court had produced carpets of the highest quality. The great court carpets of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, preserved in the Topkapı Palace Museum and in the great collections of Europe, are large silk and wool rugs woven in palace workshops in Istanbul and Bursa. The court carpets used the finest materials, were designed by the court artists, and depicted the same patterns as the tiles of İznik, the textiles of Bursa, and the manuscripts of the palace studio. The court carpets were gifts, reserved for the sultan, his family, and the highest officials, and they are now among the most valuable objects in Islamic art.

The classical court carpets, like the other manufactures of the imperial workshops of Ehl-i Hiref, were produced by skilled craftsmen working in a closed environment. The designs were adapted from the great tradition of Ottoman ornamental art, with the same tulip, carnation, and cloud-band motifs that appeared on tiles and textiles. The court carpet industry declined in the seventeenth century, and the Hereke factory of the nineteenth century was an attempt to revive it under modern conditions.

The European market and the trade

The European demand for “Turkey carpets” was the principal stimulus to Ottoman carpet production from the late fifteenth century onward. The carpets reached Europe through the Ottoman overland and maritime trade routes, and they were sold in Venice, Florence, Marseille, Antwerp, and London. The European trade in carpets grew steadily through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and it was the model for a number of European imitations, including the French Savonnerie (established in the seventeenth century) and the Austrian factory at Gloggnitz.

The European trade in Ottoman carpets was disrupted by the long European wars of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and by the increasing European demand for oriental designs in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The 1838 free-trade agreement with Britain, signed under the framework of the capitulations, opened the Ottoman market to European imports and reduced the protection of local industries. The carpet industry survived better than the textile industry, partly because European factories could not easily imitate the hand-woven oriental rug, and partly because the European taste for oriental rugs continued to grow.

Conclusion

The history of Ottoman carpet weaving is a long story that begins in the village workshops of western Anatolia in the fifteenth century and ends in the state factories of the nineteenth. The Uşak, Ghiordes, Kula, and Hereke traditions are each distinct, but they share a common aesthetic and a common commercial infrastructure. The carpets were a major export and a major source of foreign currency, and they are an essential part of the broader history of Ottoman manufacturing and trade.