The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California
Carpets And Rugs
About ten years after the carpet industry was established in the Louvre, Pierre Dupont and Simon Lourdet started another carpet weaving establishment at Chaillot, in a building that was formerly used as a soap factory (Savonnerie). Oddly enough, the carpets produced in this estab- lishment became known as Savonnererie Carpets, and the name is still used to designate the type of carpet there developed.
Louis XIV, like King Henry IV, did much to develop manufacturing industries in Fiance. He established a new factory at Beauvais, reorganized the Louvre and the Savonnerie factories, and engaged the most famous painters of his time to supply designs for the weavers.
The weaving industry, like many other French industries, was largely in the hands of Protestants, and therefore when Louis XIV, under the influence of his new wife, revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685 and allowed the persecution of the Protes- tants, he dealt industrial France a crushing blow, as practically all the Protestant weavers fled to Holland, Germany and England, where they re- sumed their trade.
Tn the westward movement of carpet weaving, Great Britain followed Spain, Italy, France, Belgium and other countries of Europe. There was practically no carpet weaving in Great Britain until the Edict of Nantes, which caused great numbers of weavers to flee to England.
Once started, the industry of weaving grew rapidly. Two of the most important centers of activity were the towns of Kidderminster and Wilton.
The European weavers had not been satisfied with the slow and tedious methods employed by the Orientals, and therefore began at once to devise weaving methods that were quicker and less laborious. The Ingrain carpet was one of the first attempts.
In the beginning practically all carpets woven in England were of the Ingrain type. In 1745 a factory in Wilton started to make cut-pile, or Wilton Carpets, and in a few years this lead was followed by Kidderminster.
The first Brussels loom was introduced from Belgium into England in 1745 by John Broom, a Kidderminster weaver, who went to the continent to study methods of weaving and learned how to build the loom and operate it. Kidderminster later became the chief seat of the Brussels and Wilton carpet industry.
