Fine Vintage Khotan “Samarkand” Handmade Wool Carpet BB6705 9'0" × 17'4" $60,000

An early 20th century Khotan carpet, the oatmeal field with racemes, angular vines and geometric motifs around three central roundels containing abstract floral motifs within a series of hooked device and floral motif borders.

The antique vintage rugs of the oasis towns of East Turkestan are incomparable. These exotic oriental carpets for sale from Kashgar, Yarkand and Khotan in the Chinese occupied Autonomous Region of Sikiang are collectively known as Samarkands. Samarkand and Khotan antique rugs typically, they are in a long and relatively narrow format with simplistic spacious designs rendered in a glossy wool, occasionally embellished with richly brocaded silk and metal-thread. The distinctive and prevailing colorations of lacquer reds, Chinese yellows, heavily influenced by the neighboring countries of China and Turkey, have been produced in this region since at least the seventeenth century. For thousands of years these lands of arid steppes, deserts and brutal mountain ranges were traversed by caravans of merchants and traders from China to Western Europe along the Silk Route.