Carpets and Rugs - from Little Falls Weekly Transcript, December 27th 1898
“Mottled Moss Greenes and Shaded Wine Colors are In Favor.
Carpeting this year is peculiarly soft yet bright in coloring. Mottled moss greens and shaded wine reds seem favorite backgrounds. On them meander trailing vines with impossible roses or scroll-like arabesques. There are glaring colors to suit untamed eyes but, on the whole, there is shown refined taste in shadings and tints, instead of the primitive colors of yore. It is a thing to be grateful for, this education of the American eye to appreciate the thousand delicate and harmonious gradations and minglings of the three primitives, says a writer in Good Housekeeping, whose comments on carpetings of the season are here given:
In great favor are small conventional designs of mottled colors in mosaic on a neutral background. These patterns, formerly confined to English brussels carpeting, are now to be had in grains.
Tapestry brussels is now printed to simulate the English, but it can never be recommended. In the latter the pattern is woven in by means of wool dyed as many tints as appear in the pattern. In tapestry the colors are stamped as if the fabric were a piece of calico. In the latter case a little wear shows the unprinted background. Ingrain wears better, is cheaper on the whole and in far better taste.
Rugs, over hard wood, painted or stained flooring or spread upon a matting background, grow steadily in favor. More and more the designs approach the oriental in character. To be condemned, though, is the trick of applying to the English and American imitations chemicals that soften down the color to give them the appearance of the age of the real eastern rugs. In English papers this fake is frankly exposed. There is not only falsehood in the imitation, but the life of the yarn is eaten out, so that the rug quickly goes to pieces.
Lately, by the way, a manufacturer placed on the market a rug the central decoration of which was a facsimile of the head of Admiral Dewey, our justly famed hero, flanked on either side by the American flag. The rug was a failure. Buyers refused to tread upon the heroic features. The rugs were returned, a dead loss, to the manufacturer. The public had a better sense than he of the fitness of things.”
Source: Little Falls Weekly Transcript. (Little Falls, Morrison Co., Minn.) December 27, 1898, SPECIAL TUESDAY EDITION, available at “Chronicling America: Historical American Newspapers” at the Library of Congress. Image and text provided by the Minnesota Historical Society.