Author Archives: Rodney Hakim

About Rodney Hakim

Persian Gallery New York is the leading source for antique decorative carpets, classic oriental rugs, vintage pillows and textiles, and period European tapestries. Wholesalers to the area rug trade and the interior design and decor community, PGNY has one of the biggest and best collections of antique rugs and tapestries anywhere in the world, and in excellent condition. Visit www.pgny.com to find the perfect rugs, carpets, tapestries, pillows, and textiles for your decorating needs!

Happy Holidays from PGNY.com!

Wishing all our clients, colleagues, and friends out there Happy Holidays!  Last weekend saw the beginning of the Passover holiday, as well as Easter.  The Passover holiday concludes this weekend, with tomorrow, Friday 4/10 being part of the holiday, and our showroom being closed in observance.  This Sunday brings Orthodox Easter.  And to round it all out, many schools have been closed this past week for Spring Break, which for beleaguered and overworked student, is truly a holy occasion!  All in all, it’s a week of rest, family togetherness, spirituality, and religious observance.

And for those who religiously observe the happenings in the PGNY Rug Blog, you can find many of our antique oriental rugs and period European tapestries available for sale that will make you say “Holy Moly!

Check out our online offerings of antique Persian and Turkish carpets, antique and period European tapestries, a fine Suzani textile, and some rare vintage pillows on the following sites:

Happy holidays again from all of us here at PGNY.com, and visit us religiously here on the PGNY Rug Blog!

 

PGNY Adding Casino Gambling to Its Antique Rug Showroom!

The area rug industry has been abuzz about all the recent news coming from the showroom of Persian Gallery New York, with our partnerships with both First Dibs and One Kings Lane, but PGNY’s latest announcement is going to be perhaps the biggest news story of the year!

There has been much made in recent months over the attempts by lawmakers in New York to allow casino gambling to be brought to the city, so as to bring in revenue that would otherwise go to the casinos in Atlantic City, Connecticut, Las Vegas, and beyond.  The Resort World Casino (or “racino”) in Queens is a proven money maker, but only offers video slots, and no real table games as in a full, traditional casino, leaving NYC without any true, full scale casino offerings.

Now, Persian Gallery New York is proud to announce that we are branching out beyond our industry-leading inventory of antique oriental rugs, old Persian carpets, and period and antique European tapestries, and expanding our showroom to include a full scale casino, complete with table games!  This is a game-changer if there ever was one!

After much negotiation, the city legislature has given us the rare and distinct privilege of being the first entity to bring casino gambling to mid-town Manhattan, but on the condition that we integrate and incorporate it into our main business, selling the world’s best antique decorative carpets and tapestries.

As such, we have arrived at a mutually agreeable solution; depending on the dollar amounts at stake in the various table games in our new hybrid carpet showroom and casino (“carp-sino”) will put our incredible rugs and tapestries at stake for table game results at given times throughout the day!  You can play Let It Ride, and ride away with a beautiful Tabriz carpet!  You can play Pai Gow, and fly away with an Art Deco Chinese rug!  The possibilities are endless!

Oh, and we must add, APRIL FOOL’S!!!!

We hope you enjoyed this bit of April Fool’s levity, and that you will browse our site for the world’s best selection of antique and vintage decorative carpets, old oriental rugs, and antique tapestries!  Happy holidays to our colleagues, clients, and friends celebrating Easter and Passover!

 

 

Antique European Tapestries – An Essential and Undervalued Art

Last week, we announced that we have formed new partnerships with two online decor sales giants, First Dibs and One Kings Lane, to provide access to select items from our inventory of antique oriental rugs and antique European tapestries to our clients who want to shop online, and can’t necessarily make the trek out to our mid-Manhattan showroom.  Both sites are active, with many lovely vintage pillows currently posted on One Kings Lane, and much more on the way, and many fine old Persian carpets and period European tapestries posted on 1st Dibs.

This announcement was met with enthusiasm by many of our clients and colleagues, who had an especially tough time coming into NYC to visit us during the endless snow storms of this past winter season.  We have had a particularly strong response to our offerings of period and antique European tapestries, of which we have perhaps the biggest and best collection anywhere in the world.

One of our tapestries that has received a significant amount of attention is the palatial Death of Achilles tapestry, woven by Jan Raes, after cartoons by Peter Paul Rubens.  Wait a minute, did I just say a tapestry was made by Rubens?  Wasn’t Rubens an Artist, with a capital A, as in he made important, famous, paintings?  Why would a famous, important European painter be wasting his time making tapestries?  Who cares about tapestries?!?

To put it simply, a lot of people care about tapestries, and especially in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance in Europe, a lot of wealthy, important people cared about tapestries.  Tapestries were actually one of the main signifiers of wealth and power back in those days, much as luxury cars, yachts, and yes, paintings by Renaissance European masters are status symbols today.  Tapestries served multiple purposes, in that they were wall coverings for castles, keeping out drafty cold air and insulating the heat in the room; they were decorative art with historical, religious, mythological, or verdant themes, and they often contained symbols of the coat of arms of whichever king, duke, count, or other royalty possessed them.  They were woven of fine wool and silk, and often had silver, gold, and other metallic threads woven into them, as well, reflecting glints of light to help amplify the illumination in the room.

And because of their expensive, labor-intensive production, only the rich and powerful could afford them.  If you think about it, any large tapestry that would be commissioned would cost tons of money, as you needed to hire not any random weaver, but a famous master weaver to make it (hey, the rich and powerful wanted name brands just as much then as they do now), would have to pay for all the materials he would need (fine wool, silk, and silver and gold threads ain’t cheap), and have them embark on a weaving project that could last several years, depending on the size of the tapestry.  Not days, not weeks, not months, YEARS.  Imagine hiring your favorite fashion designer and asking him to sit in a room and weave something only for you, the way you specifically want it, for multiple years.  Not cheap!  Very expensive!!!  So only the rich and powerful could afford to have them.  Of course, like any highly valuable form of art, knockoffs and cheaper versions came into play in later centuries, but they could never touch the grandeur, the majesty, the complexity, and the beauty of the originals.

So getting back to our friend, Peter Paul Rubens, we ask, what was this famous Artist with a capital A doing making cartoons for a tapestry?  Making money, to be quite frank.  These tapestries were produced by commission, and paid for by wealthy patrons and/or royalty, as detailed above.  And to hire not only a master weaver like Jan Raes, but to have him work off of cartoons (a smaller drawing or “blueprint” which the weaver would work off of in making his tapestry) by a big name like Peter Paul Rubens, already deep into his career and his fame in early 17th century Brussels?  And to have him design not just one piece, but a series of pieces, all to be woven in enormous, palatial sizes with the finest of materials?  We’re talking some BIG BUCKS for good old Mr. Rubens and Mr. Raes.  Rubens drew the cartoon for this piece as part of his series on the Life and Death of Achilles, with our tapestry being the culmination of the series, and perhaps its most important work.

This all begs the question, if Peter Paul Rubens and other famous European Artists with a capital A worked not only on the paintings for which we now know them, but also on tapestries and other popular art forms of their era, why is it that tapestries, which were way more labor-intensive and costly to produce than paintings, are currently valued at so much less than paintings from that era?  If you look at Peter Paul Rubens’ Wikipedia profile, at the very end, it indicates that one of his paintings, the Massacre of the Innocents, sold at auction in 2002 for an astonishing $76.2 million.  Now that’s an Artist with a capital A!  Our masterful Death of Achilles tapestry is currently available for sale online, but at a teeny tiny fraction of that price.

If so much time and costly material went into the making of these fantastic antique tapestries, why don’t they currently enjoy the same cultural cache they once did, and why are they priced infinitessimally low compared to paintings by the same artists of the same era?

I would suggest that’s it’s a combination of factors.  Period tapestries still have more cache in Europe than they do in the U.S., as people there have grown up with them, have seen them in their original historical settings, and generally are more familiar with tapestries than we are here in the States.  Next, the more important tapestries from that era that are still extant (most were destroyed by water or fire) are mostly palatial in size, as they were literally used in palaces and castles.  Most people here either don’t have wall space large enough for these tapestries, and don’t necessarily have knowledge or interest in their weavers or their subjects.  For instance, we all know the name Peter Paul Rubens, mostly because of his paintings, but how many of us know Jan Raes, who actually wove the tapestry?  Paintings tend to be sized in a way that is easier to handle, and throughout the centuries, they have become arguably the most prestigious form of art, eclipsing other traditional forms like sculpture and tapestry, and exploding in value to the point where the most valuable paintings can be sold for upwards of $140 million!  Neither antique tapestries nor antique carpets can say the same, and while exceptional carpets and tapestries may fetch several million on a very good day, there’s still no comparison with what the top paintings will go for.

Proliferation, copies, and knock-offs have also been a help and hindrance, in that copies of paintings have become so ubiquitous that almost everybody can name at least a dozen of the most famous paintings, and probably has a copy or two in their homes.  Tapestries?  Not so much.  There are many reproduction tapestries out there today, and there have been for the last couple of centuries, but they never gained the foothold in the common household that paintings have.

This is what makes it such a great time to buy an antique tapestry, as they are relatively undervalued and underappreciated, and are an interactive, tactile art that you can touch and feel, unlike paintings.  Available for a fraction of the price of similar vintage paintings, antique tapestries can transport you to a world of many centuries ago, when they were woven for the elite, and when they lent a home warmth, beauty, and prestige.  Contact us today at info@pgny.com or shop at our website or our store at First Dibs, to find the perfect antique tapestry to bring warmth, beauty, history, and much more to your home!

Now You Can Buy PGNY’s Antique Rugs and Tapestries Online!

Happy Spring!  Today is March 20th, 2015, the first day of Spring, or as it’s called in Persian culture, Nowrooz (“new day”)!  Happy Spring and Happy Nowrooz to all of you from all of us here at Persian Gallery New York!  Of course, in true New York City fashion, the first day of Spring is accompanied by a significant snow storm, but at least we can hold out hope that it will be the last snow storm of the season, and that warmer weather will quickly follow!

As we shift into the Spring season, and the major holidays of Passover and Easter loom just over the horizon, we’re on the cusp of another season, as well; the Spring Selling Season!  That’s right, in the area rug industry, Spring brings with it many things, not the least of which is a new crop of clients who are ready to shake off their winter blues and start their long-planned redecoration projects.

Traditionally, clients were always advised to start any redesign project with their rugs first, so that the rug’s unique aesthetic and its color combination could dictate the colors and design choices for the rest of the room’s decor.  Nowadays, that rule of thumb has started to fade away, what with the enormity of color and design options available in new rugs, but for the devoted antique rug enthusiasts out there, it’s a guiding principle that will always hold true.

In 2015, though, even those same traditional rug enthusiasts that, come Spring, would always start to scour the rug market for the perfect antique oriental rug have started to shift their behavior.  With the prevalence of online shopping, and the ease of access of finding and buying virtually anything in the world one could want from one’s phone, tablet, or computer, even the most stalwart of antique rug buyers don’t necessarily show up in the showrooms anymore, but would rather do their rug buying from their homes.

While we still have plenty of clients who prefer to come to our showroom and see our antique rugs and tapestries up close and in person, we understand that we do have to try to accommodate those buyers who prefer to shop from home, and to allow for that, we have to make our rugs available for sale online.

As such, we have made new partnerships with two of the leading forces in online decor sales, First Dibs and One Kings Lane!  From here on in, we will be posting numerous antique oriental rugs and period European tapestries on these two websites, where our clients can buy them directly, with just a few clicks of the mouse (or taps of the screen)!  To view all our rugs and tapestries currently for sale on these two sites, follow the links below, which can also always be found on our Links page for future reference:

Of course, you can also still find many of our rugs at discounted prices right here on PGNY.com, in our PGNY Outlet, and while those rugs can’t yet be purchased online, they can be purchased by calling or e-mailing us, or visiting us in our showroom.  As traditionalists, we will always believe that there is nothing like seeing and feeling an oriental rug in person, and that nothing can replace the showroom experience, but today is a new day, a Nowrooz, a Spring forward, and we happily spring forward into this new realm of online sales with First Dibs, with One Kings Lane, and with you!

Putting the New in New Year

py New Year 2015!  Hmmm, how many days into the new year can one still say Happy New Year?  Social etiquette aside, there’s a lot of new in the new year here at Persian Gallery New York!

If you’ve browsed through rug inventory the website recently, you may have noticed the recent addition of a category of New Rugs added to our rug searches!  For the past 40+ years, Persian Gallery New York has focused on providing only the best antique oriental rugs and vintage decorative carpets to the trade, but has never forayed into the ever-expanding world of new rugs.  Now in 2015, PGNY has finally thrown its proverbial hat into the ring of new rugs, and has added a fully searchable category of over 150 unique new rugs to this website, available in a variety of sizes and styles.

Using the left-hand navigation menu, you can browse either exclusively for antique rugs, or just for new rugs.  To consider both antique and new rug options, you can search using the different size categories listed at left, or do a custom search using the Advanced Search tab at the top of the page.  Whichever way you approach it, we are sure you will find an amazing assortment of unique and exciting rugs, from oversize to scatter size, and from wide gallery sizes to narrow runners.

Take a look at the New Rugs section, and browse through the huge array of oversize new rug options listed there.  It’s an eye-popping collection of palace size pieces, and you can view it in detailed close-up views from the comfort of your computer, tablet, or smart phone.

There’s more where that came from, too, as we have added dozens of previously unseen antique rugs to the website, and are in the process of adding many more.

Check the website frequently to catch all the latest offerings as they’re added, and give us your feedback to let us know what you think!  Wishing you all a safe, happy, healthy 2015, and we look forward to helping you find the perfect antique (or new!) rugs for your flooring needs!

Link

New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is currently holding a major exhibit of antique European tapestries, its third in the last decade.  This exhibit showcases the majestic beauty of the antique tapestry, an art form that in Renaissance Europe was even more prestigious than paintings, which can be argued as being contemporary society’s most highly valued form of two-dimensional art.

The antique tapestry (or period tapestry, as those in the trade call them) is a dazzling art form that marries the intense hand-weaving required for making oriental carpets with the subtle rendering required to delineate faces, moods, shade, and other complex artistic motifs usually associated with painting.  Tapestries were originally used in the castles of Europe’s royalty and the wealthy, both as decorative art and status symbols, but more pragmatically, also as wall coverings to keep the cold out.  Fiberglass insulation wasn’t quite invented yet, so their walls were pretty drafty!

Some of the larger tapestries, including the ones on display in the Met’s exhibit, were made by master weavers, and major artists from other disciplines (ie- Peter Paul Rubens) were also renowned for their magnificent tapestries.  The tapestries would be comprised of wool, silk, silver, gold, and other metallic threads, making them expensive to weave, especially given the difficulty of obtaining and manipulating the materials.  Larger pieces could take years to weave, and were financed by either royalty or by the dukes and lords of the land.

In modern times, tapestries still have prestige, and still have a niche audience, especially in Europe, but in the U.S., it can be argued that they are under-valued and under-appreciated.  The relative prices at auction for paintings as opposed to tapestries is astronomically higher, and antique tapestries get highlighted in museum exhibits only on occasion, as opposed to regularly.  Still and all, as collectors and purveyors of fine period tapestries, we are happy to see this wonderful art form get the exposure and coverage it deserves, and hope the trend increases as time goes on!

For more information about the exhibit at the Met, check out this article from today’s New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/24/arts/design/grand-design-showcases-pieter-coecke-tapestries-at-the-met.html?emc=edit_th_20141024&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=35177973&_r=0

 

Feedback on the New Site, & Happy Holidays from PGNY.com!

Has it already been two weeks??  Where did the time go?!?  We relaunched PGNY.com two weeks ago on Monday, September 8th, at the beginning of the annual New York area rug industry extravaganza, Metro Market Week, and can’t believe it’s already been two weeks since the relaunch!

We’ve received a great deal of positive feedback about the new and improved PGNY.com, and thank you all for letting us know some of your favorite things about the website’s redesign.  Perhaps the most universal “wow” was for the new photo system, which provides improved image viewing and dramatic zooming capabilities for all the photos on the site.  The second most common remark was that searching for rugs has become easier than ever, due to a refined and simplified search function.  We want to hear more, and look forward to more comments and feedback from you, our PGNY.com viewers and clients.

As part of the relaunch, we are continuously adding more inventory to the website, and should be 100% uploaded soon.  Keep your eyes peeled for many newly added oriental rugs, runners, pillows, and tapestries throughout all sections of the site, as well as several new Style categories to browse through.

Now, without further ado, we want to wish all our friends, family, and clients out there who celebrate Rosh Ha’Shana a happy and healthy new year, and Shana Tova to you and yours.  In observance of the holiday, we will be closed this Thursday and Friday, September 25-26.

We will be back here in the PGNY Rug Blog soon with more news, articles, updates, and commentaries, and look forward to hearing your input on all things area rugs, too!

Metro Market Week 2014, NYICS, and the Rug Show all happening this week!

With Labor Day weekend behind us, and summer all but over, the Area Rug Industry in launching into the Fall selling season with its three concurrent kickoff events, Metro Market Week, NYICS, and the Rug Show!

For those who might be unfamiliar with these events, Metro Market Week is the annual Area Rug Industry spectacular, where dealers in the New York and New Jersey metro areas invite their buyers, clients, designers, and other Area Rug Industry members to visit their showrooms to see their new collections, fresh offerings, and view their inventory.  Unlike some of the other shows in Atlanta, High Point, and elsewhere, where New York and New Jersey dealers can only bring along a small portion of their inventory, Metro Market Week emphasizes the dealers’ flagship locations, allowing for a more complete selection of rugs to be displayed.  This is the eleventh annual Metro Market Week, and while some of the pomp and circumstance of the early years has been done away with, gala dinners and cocktail parties were always secondary to the real “meat and potatoes” of the annual event.

This year, Metro Market Week serves an even more important function, in that it reunites many of the New York and New Jersey rug dealers under one umbrella again, after the unfortunate dissolution of the ORICA rug center in Secaucus earlier this year, and the recent departure of many longtime rug dealers from the New York scene.  For more information about Metro Market Week, its dates, times, participating dealers, and special offers for visitors, visit http://www.metromarketweek.com/

As part of Metro Market Week, two other major industry events are occurring, as well.  The first is NYICS, the New York International Carpet Show.  Taking place at the Metropolitan Pavilion, this show offers a chance to see samplings of some of the new and exciting offerings from many of New York’s “boutique” dealerships, and is a hidden gem in the hustle and bustle of Metro Market Week.  NYICS is an exciting show that is only in town through today, so catch it while you can!  Their website is http://www.nyics.com/

To see some of PGNY’s past exhibits in NYICS, check out the new Press Page of this website, by going to http://www.pgny.com/press/

The last show of the group is the one that has generated arguably the most fanfare, the Rug Show at Javits.  Taking place in the cavernous Jacob Javits Center on Manhattan’s west side, the Rug Show started out a couple of years ago as a show exclusively for rug dealers from Los Angeles who wanted to be part of the excitement of Metro Market Week here in the Big Apple, but across town from the rest of the dealers, and in their own forum.  The show has expanded and evolved since then, and now includes some of the biggest and best dealers from both coasts, including luminaries from Los Angeles, New York, and New Jersey.  It’s a hot ticket, and like NYICS, the Rug Show also ends today, so waste no time in getting there if you want to catch the show.  Their website is http://www.therugshow.com/

If you have the chance to catch the Rug Show at Javits and/or NYICS at the Metropolitan Pavilion, leave us a comment here on the all new PGNY Rug Blog and let us know what’s hot, what’s not, and anything else you want to discuss about Metro Market Week 2014!  We hope to hear from you all out there in internet-land, and continue to check back here frequently for all the exciting new things occurring at the new and improved PGNY.com, the Area Rug Industry’s leading source for antique oriental rugs, unique decorative carpets, and period European tapestries!

 

A New Beginning for PGNY.com

Welcome to the brand new PGNY Rug Blog, on the redesigned and relaunched PGNY.com! This year, in time for the beginning of Metro Market Week 2014, Persian Gallery New York is debuting its biggest revamp yet to its popular website, www.pgny.com, and as part of that, its highly regarded blog is also making the move to WordPress.

Browse through the redesigned PGNY.com to see all the wonderful new things that have been added to make it easier than ever to browse Persian Gallery’s industry-leading collection of antique oriental rugs, unique decorative carpets, and period European tapestries.  You’ll quickly see that this is more than just a facelift, as PGNY.com has been rebuilt from the ground up.

Picture viewing is greatly improved with the new PGNY.com, as the rug and tapestry images are larger and clearer than ever before, with a dramatic new zoom function that lets the viewer get up close and personal with each image, to get a truly detailed perspective of how each items looks.

There are also many new categories to explore within PGNY.com, including the new Press Page and Glossary sections, an upgraded and simplified Search section, new rug and tapestry categories, and much more.

And then there’s this, the new and improved, WordPress powered PGNY Rug Blog.  We will revisit some topics that were addressed in the previous Blogs, and cover many exciting new things in the world of antique rugs and tapestries, and in related fields.

This week, the big news is that the unofficial end of summer, Labor Day, has come and gone, and the area rug business is back in full swing with the return of Metro Market Week, the NYICS show at the NY Pavilion, and the NY Rug Show at the Jacob Javits Center.

We will have more information about those shows soon, but meanwhile, thanks for reading, and we’re happy to have you join us in our maiden voyage on the new PGNY Rug Blog. Sending a special thanks to the crew at Melotec for making our previous website and the original PGNY Rug Blog as big a success as it has been.

It’s onward and upward, and we look forward to discussing all things oriental rug with you right here in this space…