CARPETS THAT FLOOR YOU

There isn’t any carpet like Aladdin’s magic one. But there sure are carpets that can tell you stories and take you to a whole new world. You can see 100 of them at an unusual exhibition this month.

Collector Danny Mehra’s tribal carpets from Iran, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Kurdish enclaves in Syria are part of Carpet Stories. The show is a rare look at works from the early 19th to early 20th century all of which were woven by women.

“Just how women in India embroider together in their free time in the afternoon, tribal women [from Central Asia] would make carpets,” says Mehra, a former Wall Street executive who’s been building his collection for two decades. While the women weaved these carpets, men dyed them. “The designs were jointly improvised over two to three years and hence all of them have heart and soul.”

The pieces in the show are a small part of his personal collection, which he claims can cover an entire football field. “I am superstitious about disclosing the number,” he says. He sources his works from auction houses and from other collectors. “I pick each piece after going through hun each one.” He checks the colour, the quality, dateline, patterns of weaves, place of source and provenance.

Among the highlights of the show is a carpet numbered 717. It’s approximately 150 years old and comes from the one-time kingdom of Khorasan, in northeast Iran. The weaving style of the 6.5 feet by