Edutainment > Nepal Rugs - A Practical Purchasing Guide

Nepal Rugs I

Nepal Rugs - Info
Weaver in front of Traditional Design
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"Nepal rugs by artelino should not be covered with any furniture. You do not cover the paintings and art prints on your walls either, do you?."

This article tries to be a practical guide for purchasing a rug from Nepal. Instead of Nepal rugs the term "Tibetan rug" would be more appropriate. However the term "Nepal rugs" has become common over the last decades.

The images on this page are link-sensitive and take you to other articles or web sites in which you might be interested.

It Started in 1959

The history of Nepal rug making began in 1959 when ten thousands of Tibetans fled from the Chinese Communist troops that had occupied their country. They found a new home land in countries like India, Bhutan and mainly Nepal and began to earn a living by making carpets. This was the beginning of today's Nepal carpet "industry".

Practical Guide for Buying Nepal Rugs

If you want to buy a Nepal rug you should know and take a few things into consideration that depend on your personal taste and preferences and your expectations on quality.

Traditional or Modern?

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Tibetan Rugs - Article
Weaver in Nepal making a rug with traditional Tibetan design.
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Traditional Tibetan Rugs have very comprehensive and colorful design elements. Typical are dragon designs, other animals and mythical beings like the phoenix or the snow lion, floral designs and rugs with Buddhist symbols. Also strong colors are typical for traditional Tibetan carpets.

The Tibetan rug is a nomad rug by its origins. It was used mainly for sitting and for sleeping. Therefore the typical size is roughly 3 by 6 feet = 90 by 180 centimeters.

Tibetan carpets, as most of you know them - in sizes of 2 by 3 meters or 3 by 4 meters - are a fabrication of the Nepal carpet industry that began to accommodate designs and sizes to Western tastes in the seventies. Also modern designs with often only a simple border and no design elements in the middle, are an invention of Western interior designers and have little in common with original Tibetan rugs except for the weaving technique.

Only Traditional Nepal Rugs from artelino

artelino is not a "normal" carpet dealer. On our web site you will not find any of these boring, degenerated carpets - often also of inferior quality - and tagged with odd names of phantasy like "Quandavishnu" or "Buktapari" and similar nonsense.

We offer you only traditional designs and sizes of 90 by 180 cm (3 by 6 feet) that we have made especially for artelino after patterns of old designs. We also see our rugs more as art works, or at least as top level artisan products. We are not the supplier for a carpet that is ideal for being placed under your coffee table. Nepal rugs by artelino are like works of art and therefore nothing should be placed upon them.

The Wool of Nepal Rugs

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Traditional Tibetan Carpets
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In brochures and pamphlets carpets from Nepal are often praised for the quality of the wool coming from resilient sheep grazing on the highlands of the Himalayas. However today rugs in Nepal are seldom made from wool coming from Tibet. You will hardly find such carpets in Nepal today. At the Tibetan cooperative in Jawalakhel you may be able to buy some. But they cost 4 times more than a "regular" rug. Importing wool from Tibet is extremely expensive. And it does not make much sense either to insist on wool from Tibet. Today the wool is imported from New Zealand or Australia. These countries produce wool of a quality that is equal to the one that once came from the Tibetan highlands.

One can also buy "Nepal" rugs of minor wool quality. The origin of these carpets and the wool is in India, and one should rather speak of Tibetan carpets from India. Unless someone tries to take you to the cleaners, such carpets are considerably cheaper. And sometimes the wool for these rugs is even mixed with jute.

You can feel the quality of the wool by gliding with your hands over the rug surface. Good wool gives you a soft feeling whereas low-quality wool provides a coarse touch and feel.

Provenance

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Tibetan Tiger Rugs - Article
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The biggest part of the Tibetan carpets comes from Nepal today. The lower-quality and cheaper carpets are produced in India. Another reason why Indian carpets are so cheap is that those who make them get paid even less than in Nepal.

When you buy a cheap Tibetan carpet from India then this is comparable to buying an extremely cheap sports shoe made in China at a retail discount market for $19.99. At least you as the buyer should be aware of why you can buy so cheap. Because people are exploited in the country of production.

The Nepal rugs offered by artelino come from a manufactory in Nepal whose owner, a Newari, is a personal friend of mine for more than 30 years. Working conditions are examplary for Nepal. My friend maintains a nursery and a private elementary school for the children of the workers. Please take a look at our article Tibetan carpets from Nepal and the image material.

Number of Knots per Square Inch

Nepal rugs are available with different knotting densities. Typical are 60, 80 or 100 knots per square inch. One would assume something like "the higher the density the better". But that is wrong. It rather depends on what you want. The higher the density, the thinner the wool thread must be. And thus the pile would be less thick.

However many, including me, appreciate the thick, soft pile of the Nepal rugs. If you want to have a soft, thick, beautiful Tibetan rug, the best choice is 80 knots per square inch in my view. artelino has nearly all their rugs produced in this 80 per square inch density.

Dyes of Nepal Rugs

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Nepal Rugs with Flower Designs - Article
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You can choose between synthetic and natural/vegetable colors. Nearly hundred percent of the rugs now produced in Nepal are made with synthetic dyes.

"Synthetic" may sound for your years like "artificial" and somehow not like the stuff you expect from an all hand-made Nepal rug. Very wrong. Don't worry. Synthetical colors have come into use in Tibet since the late nineteenth century. The aniline dyes have the advantage of being light resistant and they allow a much larger range of color variations.

Natural/vegetable colors are either produced by leaving the wool as it is (from white to black) or the dyes are received from a variety of plants. But as said above, the color spectrum is limited. And moreover, the plant resources for many of the old colors are today no longer easily accessible or their procurement would require costs out of proportion.

Contouring, Trimming?

Nearly all Nepal carpets are trimmed by incising slightly into the pile along the lines of the patterns. This process is done by the help of a simple pair of scissors. Thus the design elements receive a more embossed, three-dimensional look. But of course, the carpets are also expedited without trimming on a client's request.

In my view the trimming makes the rugs look much better.

Take a Look at the Video from Nepal.

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Video - Rugs from Nepal
Click to go for Video.
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On our web site you can watch a 13 minutes video demonstrating the different processing steps to create an all-handmade Tibetan rug from Nepal.

This video was not produced by us, but by the "Carpet and Wool Development Board of Nepal". Therefore in this video you will see mainly carpets with modern designs that we do not offer. However the process of making a rug is precisely the same - no matter if it is about a modern or a traditional design. And I can assure you out of my own knowledge of this country that the rugs are made in Nepal purely by hand and with an incredible amount of work, skill and devotion - precisely as shown in the film .

Nepal Rugs from artelino

If this article and some more information on this web site about Nepal rugs should have made your mouth water and you should be interested in acquiring one of these beautiful, traditional rugs, you have the opportunity to buy from us - best in one of our Tibetan Rugs Auctions.

But you can as well buy direct. If you should not find anything in our Buy Direct Catalog, then contact me by e-mail or give us a call. We are located in Icking, a small village 30 kilometers south of Munich with a wonderful view on the Bavarian Alps. You can address us in English of course, with some patience also in French or Italian and, unless my wife is out for shopping, in Japanese as well.

Dieter Wanczura
(April 2009)

	Web www.artelino.com

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