Vintage Chinese Art Deco Green, Blue and Beige Handwoven Wool Rug BB5399 13'7" × 17'3" $55,000

This circa-1920 vintage Chinese Art Deco rug features a striking all-over design of sharp geometric shapes, including repeating rhomboid figures in green with enclosed stylized floral motifs, against a field of neutral beige. A green border neatly encloses this modernist, precise design. The vintage carpet is an intriguing relic of one of the most elegant times in America – the Jazz Age, following a disruption of the usual Mideastern trade for luxury antique oriental rugs during the first World War.

Looking to China to fill the textile vacuum, American entrepreneurs like Walter Nichols inspired a production of Western-looking variations on traditional Chinese design. The carpets perfectly complemented the extravagant style of the West at the time and became known as Chinese Art Deco, even though there was no Art Deco movement in China itself.