Aubusson carpet

Floor covering produced at the village of Aubusson in central France.

A centre for the production of tapestries and furniture coverings since the 16th century, Aubusson was granted the title of Royal Manufactory in 1665. In 1743 workshops were established to manufacture pile carpets for the nobility, and soon thereafter carpets were being produced in the flat-woven tapestry technique in floral and chinoiserie patterns. In the 19th–20th centuries the name Aubusson became synonymous with a flat-woven French carpet.

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 floor covering, usually of considerable size, handwoven at the villages of Aubusson and Felletin, in the département of Creuse in central France. Workshops were established in 1743 to manufacture pile carpets primarily for the nobility, to whom the Savonnerie (Savonnerie carpet) court production was not available. Aubusson carpets were, however, also made for the royal residences. Soon after the production of carpets began at Aubusson, the pileless tapestry technique previously in use in this district was adopted for so many of the carpets that the word Aubusson has become synonymous with a flat-woven French carpet, and it is not generally realized that piled rugs in numbers have been made there.

      Many of the early Aubussons were made in modified Oriental designs, some resembling Ushak (Ushak carpet) medallion carpets. Taste soon changed to a range of Renaissance floral and architectural patterns similar to those in use at the Savonnerie and continued to reflect court and republican fashions up to the modernistic painterly concepts of the 20th century.

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