It fills me with great sadness to learn of Nigel Lendon’s passing on October 24.

Nigel has done excellent and important work on war rugs, and his loss will be broadly felt.

Im a rare treat and a historic piece of war rug history, Luca Emilio Brancati has published a book. He has a unique and historic collection, so this book promises to be fascinating. It is available here, but American shipping is not yet available.
Order his book here (embed removed to prevent ugly and unwanted javascript from running on our page)

I am super excited to see it, and I expect to learn a great deal. Very exciting!

Today the New York Times published a story about the status of the Afghan war, including this amazing photo by Kiana Hayeri.

The countless hours I have spent
looking for the view in these rugs

While iRobot’s privacy policy is objectionable, the artist Johannah Herr’s use of a robotic vacuum is interesting and funny.

More info is about Johannah Herr’s “Drone Roomba” is here.

Vimeo video (linked rather than embedded to limit evil javascript from loading on our site)

If you are interested in a drone rug, now is a good time to ask. The 2019 collection will, hopefully, be arriving soon, and as the supply goes down the price will go up, so write soon for the best prices

Latest drone rugs. New and old styles. Large Drone rug

Hand woven wool rug featuring drones

To honor their oaths, some American civil servants are taking considerable risks and expense to describe the machination of the American government. Specialized legal council is important for these civil servants, but such expenses are not built into civil service salaries, so a fund has been set up to help civil servants with these expenses. More info here:

https://www.afsa.org/donate

In his second book about Cuba, Jonathan Hansen describes a different Fidel Castro than I knew. A highly educated and sporting man whose vision of a liberal nationalism for Cuba with civil and political liberties which later disappeared. Great book and interesting op-ed in today’s New York Times.

Temple has put together an informative website about the show of war rugs they hosted in 2016. The present a good inventory the rugs, and an interesting commentary.

The Libraries and the Intellectual Heritage Program present an exhibition of Afghan War Rugs, traditional hand knotted carpets that combine ancient practice with the latest in the daily lives of the weavers. Many of the rug designs originate in antiquity, but since the 1980’s now incorporate the war that spans from the Soviet invasion through today’s battles with the Taliban. The weavers have witnessed epic historical events, encoded them in their traditional art, and wrought important contemporary art

Here is our inventory of the rugs warrug.com loaned them for the show.

In 2017 there was an exceptional auction in Australia, which I just learned about from Luca Brancati’s Pinterest, of the Australian rug dealer and expert Jacques Cadry’s collection.

Here is a fine Kirman pictorial rug showing a scene familiar to fans of Afghan Pictorial rugs showing a garden scene with a woman pouring wine in a scene taken from Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat.

Here is an Afghan take on the same subject:

Some of the Soviet figure rugs and war rugs sold looked familiar from the work of Nigel Lendon and Tim Bonyhady. If you know the location of that resource, please contact me.

Here are some fascinating rugs. The price estimates looked good, so I regret missing the opportunity to bid.

This one is amazing, with Alexander of Macedonia’s citadel.

There were four Baghlani rugs in the auction, each one unusual and cool.

There were also a few examples of so-called Diamond Herati designs, which are the famous Herati design from Herat area.

Finally, there are a couple rugs which provide a unique and important perspective on an Turkish war rug from around the time of World War I

Available, please stay tuned for better photos.

While looking at Luca Brancati’s war rug Pinterest I discovered a
rug in the collection of the British Museum which was donated by Graham Gower in 2010.

The most similar rug, that I have seen, to the rug above is this beautiful rug from the second iteration of the Weavings of War show which traveled the US from 2005 to 2007.

Graham Gower donated some other gems too.

More
More object details are here.

More object details are here.

More object details are here.

The The rest of Graham Gower’s donation is here.
Succinct list view. The dates are compelling