Cina Déco

Antique Chinese carpets from the Art Nouveau-Déco period: the high, silky pile, the colour as the protagonist and the breaking of all geometric patterns. These are the characteristics of Nichols carpets, made by the manufacturer of the same name in the 1920s and 1930s to meet the new aesthetic requirements of the growing American market. That of W. Nichols was a great and enlightening adventure that began in 1924 in Tientsin. He was truly the pioneer of a new taste in the history of carpets and of a technical perfection that is maintained over time. Between the 1920s and 1940s, American merchants began to have carpets made in China that were more in keeping with the new fashions and furnishing styles of the time than the traditional carpets. W. Nichols arrived in China just after the First World War, at the height of the Art Deco period, starting out as a wool sorter and soon mastered the mechanised spinning of Chinese wool. In 1924, Nichols opened a modern factory-office complex in Tianjin and began producing rugs that were robust and characterised by a high pile and a "silky" effect. The warp and weft are made of strong cotton.