How to Buy an Antique Rug

Nader Bolour, president of Doris Leslie Blau carpet gallery, shares his wisdom with Barron’s Penta.

Richard C. Morais:  Picking the right antique, oriental persian rug for your home is very important because it enhances the beauty of your furniture and the art on your walls for that reason we went to pay the visit to Nader Bolour, the director of the Doris Leslie Blau antique and vintage rug company to learn more about the fine art about picking the right rug.

Nader Bolour: The difference between a ten thousand dollar rug to a two hundred thousand dollar rug is similar to, let say a Buick to a Ferrari, you can actually, even if you are not knowledgeable about rugs just feel the difference in them just like you can tell the difference between a Buick and Ferrari … When a Ferrari enters into the road; the statement is made. It’s kind of goes without saying.

Generally antique rugs are pre-nineteen twenties; dating back as early as the fifteenth century. Vintage rugs are referred to rugs that were made after nineteen twenties up to nineteen seventies. The trends keep changing.

We discover more and more younger clients coming through the door and they’re more interested in very eclectic unusual vintage rugs. They are drawn towards brand recognition so rugs that are easily identifiable such as Swedish rugs by famous artists or Moroccan rugs that were made in a certain date so that they could easily understand the value.

So with antique rugs the finest of the weave is very important because the finer it is the more refinement the design will have.

The colors are always very important it continues to be very soft color tones. People who use the soft color rugs; they like their art to pop, so if there’s a lot of color on the floor then the art is a conflict or the important pieces of furniture could be a conflict.  So they would like to get very very soft patterns and of course the softer color rugs are rarer hence the value being higher.

Size plays the most important factor; you can buy a small six by four antique rug for, a great rug for anywhere between ten to twenty thousand. When it goes over twelve by nine it can go up from twenty to seventy thousand. Anything that’s great; above eighteen by twelve could be eighty thousand and up.

On vintage rugs you can buy a beautiful nine by twelve rug for fifteen thousand. A bigger large area rug eighteen by twelve for thirty five, forty thousand and really a huge one for under sixty thousand. You should be able to get prices online; if you don’t that shows a red flag.

What shows off first in the room is the floor, so everything from the floor up looks dramatic if the rug makes a statement on the floor; and it seems like everyone wants to make a statement in their homes.