Vintage Samarkand (Khotan) Carpet BB6750 13'0" × 17'1" $80,000

An early 20th century Samarkand rug, the pale peach field with a spacious trellis with an angular vinery, racemes and palmettes within an abstract flowerhead and angular vine border.

The antique vintage rugs of the oasis towns of East Turkestan are incomparable. These exotic oriental antique carpets from Kashgar, Yarkand and Khotan in the Chinese occupied Autonomous Region of Sikiang are collectively known as Samarkands. Samarkand and Khotan 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.