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Craig Wallen is a certified fine arts appraiser and the owner of Gallery 51 in Philadelphia's historic Old City district. A curator of public and private collections around the world, Craig has been a guest speaker for The Textile Museum in Washington D.C.and a contributing writer for Hali Magazine in London.
One of the more interesting differences between the contemporary concept of what a rug is today and what a rug was in times past is the idea of selling.
Today it would be almost unthinkable for a world-class craftsperson to produce pieces that were neither for display nor for sale. Yet often, in the days when some of today's most coveted rug-making techniques were being developed, that was exactly the case. One interesting example of this is the divan. Largely unknown in the west, even today, the divan, like so many other weavings we currently term, “rugs,” was not made to be placed on the floor or walked on. Instead, they were made specifically to sit on. Woven just like rugs intended for the floor, divan covers were often made with extra special care, great materials, dyes and fantastic designs. The weavers used narrow looms, and often imitated standard rugs, but made them either singly or in two totally independent parts or halves, which could be used separately, on a seating platform, also called a divan. They could also be sewn together to create a complete rug (with a seam down the center). Because of their small size and their occasional seams, divan covers are often thought to be half rugs or fragments, but this is not so.
Another very important aspect to these rugs is that they were never made for sale or the export market. They were made solely for domestic use, and as such, were often woven with great care, since they showcased the workmanship of the women in the house.
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Beautiful Turkish Divan Rugs
In many parts of the Middle East, a special, separate room was set aside in the home and used only for meetings, entertaining guests, lounging or lengthy discussions. In Europe, this was known as the salon, but all across the Middle East, particularly in the Ottoman Empire, such encounters took place in the divan. The types of chairs commonly seen in these rooms were originally found in governmental chambers in the Ottoman Empire which hosted meetings of councils called diwans.
Over time the name was extended from the council to the room, from the room to the sofas and from the sofas to the woven covers that were used to decorate them and increase their comfort.
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Beautiful Turkish Divan Rugs
The divan room also took on connotations as a special meeting place complete with unique architectural features. Originally, the divan seat was a low platform built on three sides of a long, narrow room. These seating platforms, typically made of wood, but sometimes consisting of other hard materials, such as stone or plaster, needed something to make them comfortable for sitting or lounging. The answer was usually a thin mattress that was topped with a cover, also woven with special characteristics.
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Beautiful Turkish Divan Rugs
To cover these special seats, divan covers were typically created to be long and narrow, with borders only on three sides. They were wide enough to cover the platform and to allow the border on the long side to overhang the front of the seat. The side without a border would be placed on the edge,at the wall, and yastiks (long pillows or cushions) would be lined up against the wall, hiding the lack of a border element and perfect for lounging.
Sometimes the yastiks would match the divan covers, but often they would not. In those instances the result was a riot of color and pattern. The effect was amplified on entering the room as it was in stark contrast to the outdoor environment, which due to the geography, was typically rather bleak and dry, washed in tones of grey and brown.
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The result was truly luxurious. In terms of color, design and feeling, the décor was fitting for fancy receptions and rather exotic on every level. The long, rectangular floor space defined by the three seating platforms along the perimeter of the room would be also be covered with a divan carpet (as opposed to the divan covers), onto which would be placed two or three, small round tables to handle trays of drinks, like coffee or tea, or sweets.
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Though today sofas are sometimes called divans it is important to note that the word only entered European parlance in the 18th C., brought by returning travelers who had visited the Middle East and seen divans (ostensibly the people and rooms as well as the chairs and rugs) while there.This design style is still seen in Morocco, and the effect is often evoked in rooms that aspire to having either a Middle Eastern or North African design flavor, often with great success.
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