Aubusson

Aubusson by Michaelian & Home. Aubusson pillows and Aubusson rugs of the highest quality. In the autumn of 1922 Frank Michaelian arrived on the overnight steamer ship from Shanghai and entered the port of Chefoo on the northeast coast of mainland China. In the previous year, the twenty five year old Michaelian had established the Aubusson carpet manufacturing and importing company Michaelian and Home. Michaelian was to later become one of the first Americans to establish aubusson carpet exporting offices in the Middle East and India, but early on one of his ambitions was to introduce and train needlepoint carpet weaving skills to artisans in mainland China. Michaelian set up a weaving center in China and between the years of 1924 and 1937 Michaelian and Home was to produce some of the finest examples of Aubusson carpets ever made. These hand stitched Aubusson rugs have sold at auction in recent years for prices normally reserved for museum pieces.

In 1937, with the Japanese invasion of the Chinese coast and the hostilities taking place between Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Tse-tung, Michaelian and Home was forced to leave China. History though does have a habit of repeating itself, and with the opening of China in the early 1980's, Teddy Sumner in the footsteps of his grandfather, Frank Michaelian, reestablished a hand hooked rug weaving facility in China where both needlepoint and Aubusson weave oriental hand hooked rugs are currently woven. Today, Michaelian and Home is universally credited with the introduction of Chinese make Aubusson carpets on a commercial scale in this generation. They have won numerous awards for design excellence and their name is synonymous with the finest craftsmanship and materials.

The Aubusson rugs and Aubusson pillow of Michaelian and Home are made entirely by hand. The level of skill and attention to detail is comparable to carpets made over two hundred years ago.

Each Aubusson rug design woven by Michaelian and Home has been developed by their design team. Sometimes through a series of sketches and more formalized gouache paintings a new design is created, and at other times an antique Aubusson carpet design is reproduced with certain elements edited or recombined to suit our current tastes. The highly skilled sample makers in China who make the first oriental carpet further finesse the design by taking a two dimensional cartoon and flesh it out into an actual textile. Often the initial sample goes through several trials before we are satisfied with the Aubusson rug.