Jan David Winitz, President and Founder of Claremont Rug Company, reports that with the passage of time, the commercial and legal definition of the word “antique” has quietly entered a new era. Objects created in the 1920s are now widely recognized as antiques under the long-established 100-year criterion. While this broadens what may accurately be described as antique, it dilutes an important distinction for collectors, museums, and design professionals seeking works of exceptional artistic and historical significance.
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Jan David Winitz, President & Founder of Claremont Rug Company. With Bakshaish Dragon & Phoenix Carpet, circa 1825, from his own collection.
As thousands of decorative objects, furnishings, and textiles from the early twentieth century now qualify as antiques, the usage of the term has instantly conferred a new importance on tens of thousands of handmade and manufactured items. While age alone has never been the defining characteristic of great art, it does carry cache in the marketplace as an indicator of quality. However, enduring artistic merit, craftsmanship, rarity, cultural importance, condition, and provenance remain the attributes that separate exceptional works from those that are simply old.
Nowhere is this distinction more meaningful than in the world of antique Oriental and Persian rugs.
For close to five decades, Claremont Rug Company has dedicated itself exclusively to preserving the time-tested standards that evaluate what are the finest Oriental and Persian rugs still available. The most significant of these weavings are all from the 19th century because by 1900 the rug-weaving tradition was being co-opted by European and American business interests that subordinated Oriental rug weaving’s priority of artistry to expediency.
By the turn of the 20th century, commercialization was terminating this millennia-old tradition of creating one-of-a-kind, hand-knotted rugs. Both rug designers and weavers were beginning to be restricted by the international export companies that bought their goods. Oriental rugs continue to be hand-woven, but they are no longer unique, as designs can be identically found in numerous sizes and truncated color combinations.
Unlike the vast majority of rugs now classified as antiques simply because they have reached 100 years of age, Claremont Rug Company’s collection is curated according to standards associated with the world’s leading art museums. Every rug is selected for exceptional artistry, design originality, rarity, condition, and historical significance.
Only a very small percentage of available pieces reviewed by Claremont Rug Company qualify as Museum-Level masterpieces, High-Collectible works, or Connoisseur-Caliber representatives worthy of the most discerning private and institutional art collections.
This unwavering commitment to quality has established Claremont Rug Company as the world’s foremost authority on 19th-century Oriental rugs. The firm’s scholarship, exhibitions, educational publications, and carefully curated collection have helped redefine these masterworks as fine art deserving of the same respect afforded to important paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts.
“The expanding definition of ‘antique’ reminds us that age is only the beginning of the conversation,” says Jan David Winitz, President and Founder of Claremont Rug Company. “The true measure of greatness lies in artistic vision, rarity, and cultural significance. Our mission has always been to identify and preserve the finest surviving examples of 19th-century weaving, the works that continue to inspire collectors, museums, and interior designers around the world.”
As the marketplace welcomes an ever-growing range of twentieth-century antiques, Claremont Rug Company believes the need for informed connoisseurship has never been greater. Collectors seeking lasting value increasingly recognize that the finest 19th-century Oriental rugs occupy a category all their own, one defined not merely by chronology, but by artistic achievement of the highest order.
For collectors, curators, and designers who understand that truly important rugs belong among the world’s great works of art, Claremont Rug Company continues to serve as the definitive resource. Its unparalleled expertise, rigorous standards, and singular focus on the finest surviving 19th-century or earlier weavings have made this firm founded in 1980 the trusted destination for those seeking pinnacle of woven artworks in terms of beauty, rarity, and historical importance that transcends changing definitions and passing trends.
About Claremont Rug Company
Claremont Rug Company is internationally recognized as the leading authority on 19th-century Museum-Level, High-Collectible, and Connoisseur-Caliber Oriental rugs. Through decades of scholarship, connoisseurship, and uncompromising curation, the company has assembled the world’s most comprehensive collection of investment-quality, 125 to 300-year old Persian, Turkish, Caucasian and tribal Oriental rugs, serving private and institutional clientele worldwide.
For more information, please visit www.claremontrug.com
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