CARPET DIEM

A tale of carpet collecting and its ardent Arabian knights.

“Some achieve addiction, some have addiction thrust upon them,” says Bradley of his adventures and misadventures in oriental rug collecting (“rug” and “carpet” being interchangeable terms). His is an unexpectedly engrossing account of a decades-long preoccupation with carpets, their history and lore, and his interactions with kindred connoisseurs, dealers, restorers, and disreputable players in the trade. A poet, olive oil importer, and former sommelier, Bradley is a member of New York’s Hajji Baba Club, a group devoted to the appreciation and collection of fine rugs, antique and otherwise. With changing tastes, the demand for oriental carpets may not be what it once was—a 17th-century Persian rug fetched $34 million in 2013—but Bradley’s personal journey of discovery, learning, bargaining, acquisition, and lamentation, which began in 2003, is no less fascinating. Even those not immediately drawn to the subject will find his weave hard to resist. Carpet isn’t a product so much as a culture of considerable complexity, and Bradley’s book is an education. His take on the strategies of bargaining—a chess (or fencing) match with feints and misdirection, moves and countermoves—is particularly enjoyable. Fine carpets, says the author, are a testament to painstaking manual skill: “There’s nothing that requires more craftsmanship than weaving a fine oriental carpet….As decorative items, they go in and out of fashion, but collectors have never abandoned them.” Bradley’s prose is crisp, fresh as a new loaf of bread, and not without a certain elegance of description. He can paint vivid word pictures, especially of New England and Asia. Bradley augments his book with engaging asides, a detailed appendix, a glossary of terms, a bibliography, and 11 full-color photographs.

The allure of artisanal rugs is afforded the treatment it deserves.