Hereke carpet

Hereke carpets are Turkish handmade carpets produced and sold in Hereke, a coastal town in Turkey. For a long time, they used to be produced only in Hereke, 60 km from Istanbul. The materials used are silk, a combination of wool and cotton, and sometimes gold or silver threads.[1]

The Hereke carpet in the Ambassador's Hall in Dolmabahçe Palace is about 120m² large

Silk on silk Hereke carpet
0.6 m2, 32 x 32 knots/cm2; 13 years of work

The Ottoman sultan Abdülmecid I founded the Hereke Imperial Manufacture in 1841 to produce all the textiles for his Dolmabahçe Palace on the Bosphorus. He gathered the best artists and carpet weavers of the Ottoman Empire in Hereke, where they began producing high-quality rugs and large carpets with unique patterns.

After completing work on the Dolmabahçe Palace, the Ottoman sultans used to give Hereke carpets as gifts to selected visiting royalty, noblemen and statesmen. It was not until 1890 that some traders in Istanbul were allowed to sell some of the pieces made at Hereke. With the end of the Ottoman Empire, the production of Hereke carpets was restricted until the middle of the 20th century, when some master-weavers in Hereke began once more to produce the carpets in continuation of the tradition of the Ottoman palace carpets.

As of 1920, Hereke was home to a carpet-making school which was run by the state. Both Muslim and Christian women and children attended classes.[2]

Hereke carpets typically are very large, palace-sized carpets, and they are made with wool on cotton, camel hair on cotton, silk on cotton, as well as silk on silk, which are knotted in small sizes. The precision of their double knots (Turkish or Ghiordes knots), which allows the clear display of patterns, together with the colour combinations and the harmonious patterns, have made them highly collectible. Today, Hereke carpets and rugs are still made with the traditional patterns of the Ottoman sultan, Abdülmecid I, as well as both traditional Anatolian and contemporary figurative patterns.