‘The Carpet and the Collector’ combines art and history

Sarah Bryan Miller | St. Louis Post-Dispatch | 13th March 2016

New York’s Met currently features an old “Bellini carpet” on its website. The back story is an interesting one. Relegated to being a “decorative art” by some, rugs are for others the most distinctive art form of the Islamic world. Accurate dating is difficult but can be approximated for some very old rugs by reference to paintings in which they appear. For those with an appetite for detail, the history of carpets in painting is here.