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Learning to Love Antique Rugs, with Jan David Winitz: Part 1
30 Plays1 year ago
In part one of a two-part episode with Claremont Rug Company, president and founder Jan Winitz gives Ben the goods on the first Oriental rug he ever acquired. Made on a vertical loom over the course of nearly a year by a group of women, its imagery includes dragons (for the masculine principle of the cosmos) and phoenixes (for the receptive, earth-rooted feminine principle). It made such an impression on Winitz that he’s never attempted to sell it.
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Transcript
Introduction to Curious Objects
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to Curious Objects, brought to you by the magazine Antiques.
00:00:14
Speaker
I'm Ben Miller.
00:00:15
Speaker
This is the podcast about art, decorative arts, and antiques, the stories behind them, and what they can reveal to us about ourselves and the people who came before us.
Understanding KPSI in Rugs
00:00:24
Speaker
Here's a fun fact.
00:00:25
Speaker
One of the metrics for the quality of a handwoven rug is called KPSI, which sounds maybe very scientific, but it's actually a simple concept.
00:00:34
Speaker
Knots per square inch.
00:00:36
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Each rug is made up of hand-tied knots.
00:00:39
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The more knots, the more meticulous and detailed the design or pattern can be, and of course, the more labor it took to make.
00:00:47
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A reasonably skilled weaver can tie a knot, oh, say every 10 seconds or so, which comes to 360 knots per hour.
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And in a fine rug, 360 knots might be as little as one square inch, which means for a room-sized rug, you could be talking about thousands and thousands of hours of highly skilled artisan labor.
00:01:06
Speaker
Which goes a long way toward explaining why real handmade rugs cost so much more than machine-made disposable ones.
Meet Jan David Winnitz: A Two-Part Series
00:01:13
Speaker
Is the quality difference worth it?
00:01:15
Speaker
Well, we're going to find out.
00:01:18
Speaker
This is the first of two episodes I'm doing in partnership with the firm Claremont Rug Company.
00:01:23
Speaker
I'm here in their offices in Oakland, California, with their president and founder, Jan David Winnitz.
00:01:29
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Thanks for having me, Jan.
00:01:30
Speaker
Jan David Winnitz, Okay.
00:01:31
Speaker
Well, you're welcome.
00:01:32
Speaker
You're very welcome.
Cherished Rugs and Their Stories
00:01:34
Speaker
Today's Curious Object is a piece that I think many listeners will relate to, and it's not because you're necessarily a rug collector enthusiast, maybe you are, but it's because this is an object that has traveled with Jan through time and space.
00:01:50
Speaker
And it's been an important presence in his life.
00:01:52
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And maybe there's something like this in your life, an object that has accompanied you through years or decades.
00:02:00
Speaker
It's the thing you'd rescue from a fire.
00:02:03
Speaker
And for Jan, that special object is this rug.
00:02:06
Speaker
and it's hanging in his office, not for sale of course.
00:02:09
Speaker
But in today's episode, we're going to hear from Jan about the power and meaning of this rug and how it intertwines with his own remarkable story of discovering and navigating the world of antique rugs.
00:02:22
Speaker
But first, Jan, are you ready for some rapid fire questions?
00:02:25
Speaker
Jan Bogaert, I am.
00:02:26
Speaker
And just a comment about something you said earlier about how precious rugs are to people.
00:02:32
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About 15 years ago, we had a big fire in the Brooklyn Hills just right above us.
00:02:37
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And when people were escaping the fire, there was numerous videos made of the people running down the hills.
00:02:45
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And there was a number of them were carrying rugs over their shoulders.
00:02:50
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And that indicates how precious the rugs were to them.
00:02:53
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Yeah, that really tells you a lot, doesn't it?
00:02:56
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All right, well, let's
The Value of Antique Rugs
00:02:57
Speaker
dive in.
00:02:57
Speaker
So, Jan, what's the most valuable rug that you've ever touched?
00:03:03
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A few million dollars.
00:03:06
Speaker
Oh, is that all?
00:03:07
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Historical places, yeah.
00:03:08
Speaker
Well, that's one of the things we're going to talk about is that rare antique rugs are very underappreciated as artworks in monetary value.
00:03:20
Speaker
Although we have many major collectors who have invested very heavily in creating their collections.
00:03:26
Speaker
So if you had to choose something other than rugs to deal in, what would it be?
00:03:31
Speaker
types of original tribal art that have a very, very long history.
00:03:36
Speaker
Like I do have one client who was also a major class
00:03:41
Speaker
collection of Indoorwood art, which is also fascinating because it has a lot of the organic creativity that our rugs have.
00:03:51
Speaker
Love that.
00:03:52
Speaker
The people that created the rugs were of the earth.
00:03:55
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They were pre-industrial people because we deal in almost exclusively 19th and then some 18th century rugs.
00:04:02
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They lived in small villages without electricity.
00:04:08
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Their method of mobility was horseback.
00:04:15
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And they were very close to the earth.
00:04:18
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And the rugs are an expression of their relationship with the earth, which is so precious and so needed in today's world.
00:04:26
Speaker
What's your favorite museum to visit?
00:04:29
Speaker
Well, the de Young in San Francisco and then the Metropolitan in New York.
00:04:34
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Hard to argue with that.
00:04:35
Speaker
Yeah.
A Journey in Rug Education
00:04:38
Speaker
What's one book that an amateur should read to start to think about and understand antique rugs?
00:04:44
Speaker
Well, I think when I finally finished my book, which I've been working on for, I've embarrassed to say 30 years, would really show many different aspects of antique rugs that have never been presented in the Western world.
00:04:59
Speaker
What is a mistake you've made in the business that you regret and maybe learn something from?
00:05:05
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Well, I think it's been more of an evolution of starting to wanting to sell when we started our company because our company started very small.
00:05:17
Speaker
Our original inventory was only about 40 rugs and we had a tiny little storefront around the corner.
00:05:24
Speaker
And so there was an urge to sell.
00:05:27
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And then we found it was much more to my...
00:05:31
Speaker
much more palatable to me and much more effective to become an educational center, to educate people about the rugs and then let the rugs find their own homes.
00:05:46
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And that became incredibly more effective because people would fall in love with them.
00:05:49
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And we'll talk during this episode why that is so, that it's such a personal thing.
00:05:59
Speaker
proclivity, a personal relationship with the rugs.
00:06:03
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If I did make one mistake, was very early on, very pale tone rugs were fashionable for home decor.
00:06:12
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And we did buy some of those because they were selling elsewhere.
00:06:15
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They were selling in New York, they were selling in London.
00:06:18
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So we bought some, but they just didn't have the heart and soul because they weren't made
00:06:24
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from the people as their own personal expression.
00:06:27
Speaker
They were made for a market and they didn't have the life quality.
00:06:33
Speaker
And I'll be talking about when I say life quality or the emotional aspect, the rugs were made by women and they are, I think, probably the premier's women in art form in the world.
00:06:47
Speaker
And they are an expression of the women's or the tribal people's relationship to nature.
00:06:54
Speaker
So if you imagined going on a permanent camping trip and you had to learn how to not only survive in nature, but to benefit from nature and to live a full hearty life, you would need to learn about the rhythms of nature.
00:07:12
Speaker
And that's what the rugs are expressing, all the harmony and the diversity that is in all natural items.
00:07:23
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And I think this is one of the greatest values in that they touch the emotions, not only the mind.
00:07:30
Speaker
They touch emotions very strongly.
00:07:32
Speaker
Along those lines, what was the last rug you saw that gave you goosebumps?
The Art and Craft of Rug Making
00:07:39
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Well, you know, it's interesting.
00:07:41
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It's sitting right over there.
00:07:42
Speaker
It's the last rug against the wall with the red field.
00:07:47
Speaker
That's a Persian Bakshayesh.
00:07:50
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The one that's rolled there.
00:07:51
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And that was made around 1850 in a mountain village at an elevation of around 6,000 feet.
00:07:58
Speaker
The people who lived there, they may have lived in their village their whole lifetime and never left.
00:08:04
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But at the same time, their ability to express all the different aspects, all the different nuances of nature in such a way, and each bhakshayage is different.
00:08:17
Speaker
And one of the things about like an antique rug, like the rug I'm discussing right now is a nine by 12.
00:08:24
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They were made on a vertical loom.
00:08:26
Speaker
They're not the product of one person.
00:08:29
Speaker
Small ones are, but the larger ones are the product like a nine by 12, like the one we're discussing right now, was woven by six women on a vertical loom.
00:08:39
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And they sat side by side on this 12 foot high loom for almost a year weaving.
00:08:46
Speaker
And each person, they had a theme or a pattern that they were weaving, but each person was expressing it a little differently.
00:08:53
Speaker
And then it grew out of their life story.
00:08:59
Speaker
So sometimes one weaver would put a child in there.
00:09:05
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That could have been a child, their own child.
00:09:09
Speaker
Or they'll put a few animals running across it, and maybe there was a herd of bison.
00:09:15
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or elk running through the village at that time.
00:09:18
Speaker
So they were putting their own personal expression there.
00:09:22
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And then when they were weaving, this very slow process, they were chanting.
00:09:29
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And the reason for the chanting was it created a consistent rhythm.
00:09:34
Speaker
So it was a group, in the case of a 9x12, of six people working together as one.
00:09:41
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And which is another lesson that we really need in our modern world is to learn how to work together as if we were one.
00:09:50
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So and that's another I think for me is one of the great values of the anti drugs.
00:09:56
Speaker
Fantastic.
00:09:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:59
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And then one last thing about that is just imagine sitting on this 12 foot high loom.
00:10:06
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on rickety scaffolding side by side, a hip to hip with five other people for a year.
00:10:13
Speaker
And that they were collaborating.
00:10:17
Speaker
I would think I would go to either love them or hate them.
00:10:20
Speaker
I think the love is more of a, you know, is what happened more often.
00:10:27
Speaker
Yeah, I suppose if it was hate, you might not finish the rug.
00:10:32
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You might think you're right.
00:10:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:38
Speaker
We'll be right back with Jan David Winnitz of Claremont
Engaging with the Audience
00:10:41
Speaker
Rugs.
00:10:41
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He has a deeply revealing story for us about his personal prized rug and how he has grown alongside it.
00:10:48
Speaker
But first, I just want to say thanks for listening.
00:10:51
Speaker
And thanks to all of you who have gotten in touch.
00:10:54
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I love hearing what you think, learning about your curious objects and hearing your suggestions for future episodes.
00:11:02
Speaker
We actually have a couple in the works right now that have come from your ideas, so please keep those coming and send them to me on Instagram at Objective Interest or over email at CuriousObjectsPodcast at gmail.com.
00:11:16
Speaker
Another way you can really help me out is by leaving a five-star rating for Curious Objects in Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you're listening.
00:11:26
Speaker
and just writing a quick sentence or two about why you like the show.
00:11:30
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I'm told that's a really important way to bring new listeners to the podcast.
00:11:35
Speaker
So thank you so much for taking the time to do that.
00:11:38
Speaker
It means a lot to me, and frankly, it's just so much fun to read the reviews you write.
00:11:43
Speaker
Okay, with that said, let's get back to Antique Rugs.
Personal Stories of Rug Passion
00:11:49
Speaker
Antique Rugs
00:11:51
Speaker
So Jan, let's talk about this particular rug of yours that's hanging in your office.
00:11:57
Speaker
And first of all, could you just give listeners a mental image of what it looks like?
00:12:02
Speaker
It is bokshayish, which is one of my favorite styles.
00:12:06
Speaker
And it's a dragon phoenix design, which is a very old design in the Eastern world, where the dragon, which shows four large dragons around the medallion, the dragon was the symbol of the masculine principle.
00:12:23
Speaker
Not man, but the masculine force, which was, they believe, was the force of the cosmos.
00:12:30
Speaker
And the phoenix, the bird, which was shown like almost embracing the dragon in this rug, was the feminine principle, which was the receptive quality of the earth.
00:12:45
Speaker
And the whole rug is about that relationship between the dragon and phoenix, between yin and yang.
00:12:54
Speaker
Yang being the masculine, yin being the feminine.
00:12:57
Speaker
And again, this is not man and woman.
00:12:59
Speaker
These are cosmic principles of the Eastern world.
00:13:03
Speaker
And it is powerful.
00:13:05
Speaker
And at the same time, it's incredibly embracing.
00:13:08
Speaker
And so the dragon and phoenix is shown in the medallion, but around the edges in the corner pieces, it is a depiction of a metal floor.
00:13:18
Speaker
repeat with spiders.
00:13:21
Speaker
So it was showing macrocosm and microcosm that what is created perhaps and appears in the macrocosm in the heavenly world also manifests in the microcosm on the forest floor.
00:13:35
Speaker
How did you first encounter it?
00:13:37
Speaker
This rock?
00:13:39
Speaker
Very interesting.
00:13:41
Speaker
Very, very interesting.
00:13:45
Speaker
I saw it first when I was 19 years old, where I just started studying in UC Berkeley.
00:13:56
Speaker
And there was a collector who knew some of my family members who had this rug.
00:14:02
Speaker
And I saw it, I fell in love with it, and I said, oh my God, is this for sale?
00:14:07
Speaker
I didn't have the money to buy it, but that's the question you ask.
00:14:11
Speaker
And he said, no.
00:14:13
Speaker
And then, but this rug stayed in my head, and I guess I stayed in the gentleman's head, because about a year and a half later, he offered it to me.
00:14:22
Speaker
And originally, when I saw it first, I said, well, if he were to sell it, what would the cost be?
00:14:29
Speaker
And he said $2,500, which at that time sounded like all the money in the world, because a VW Beetle at that time was $1,900.
00:14:38
Speaker
Sure.
00:14:42
Speaker
When I came to a year later, he approached me and said, OK, well, I think I'm ready to sell that rug.
00:14:52
Speaker
And I said, great.
00:14:54
Speaker
And he charged me thirty five hundred dollars.
00:14:57
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:14:58
Speaker
And actually, I learned a very valuable lesson, which was.
00:15:03
Speaker
I became very educated about value.
00:15:05
Speaker
I knew a lot about rugs from family members, but I didn't know much about value.
00:15:10
Speaker
But when I learned about value, the $3,500 seemed like a lot less money than the $2,500 originally did.
00:15:18
Speaker
Interesting.
00:15:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:19
Speaker
So that was the first great rug I actually bought.
00:15:21
Speaker
And I was at that time, I was in my freshman year at UC Berkeley.
00:15:28
Speaker
Did you put it in your dorm room or what did you do with it?
00:15:31
Speaker
I did not.
00:15:34
Speaker
No, I was living in a student co-op and it did not belong there.
00:15:37
Speaker
I went into safekeeping.
00:15:39
Speaker
Yeah, okay, that was probably for the best.
00:15:42
Speaker
So when you did purchase this $3,500 rug, did you have any inkling at that point that you might want to go into the business, that this might be a professional calling for you?
00:15:55
Speaker
Well, you know, I was studying education and my passion was I saw a lot of
00:16:04
Speaker
I thought, you know, when you're 19 years old, you think that everyone before you does everything wrong or you have better ideas.
00:16:10
Speaker
But I wanted to reinvent the education system.
00:16:15
Speaker
Now, I feel like I'm still in education, no doubt about it, because we basically, as I said earlier, we educate people about rugs.
00:16:25
Speaker
And then many of those people fall in love with the rugs as an art form on their own.
00:16:32
Speaker
And also there's life lessons about balance and harmony and about how to get along in the world that's inherent in the rugs.
00:16:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:43
Speaker
So how did that for you evolve out of a sort of interest or a curiosity and into a career?
00:16:52
Speaker
Well, it's very interesting.
00:16:53
Speaker
I was a school teacher.
00:16:55
Speaker
I was teaching high school and coaching the track team.
00:16:59
Speaker
for three years.
00:17:01
Speaker
And I read everything, all the books that I could find about rugs because I really, really wanted to learn.
00:17:10
Speaker
But there was a disconnect.
00:17:13
Speaker
What I saw when I looked at the rugs and what I read in the books were not the same thing.
00:17:20
Speaker
The books were scholarly analysis, where the rugs were this deeply impassioned item, and that was missing in every book that I read, just to a greater or lesser extent.
00:17:33
Speaker
And the way I actually entered with the career was at this point when there was this disconnect.
00:17:40
Speaker
I didn't know really what to do.
00:17:42
Speaker
I was thinking about going and seeing if I could find a way to visit these old weaving villages.
00:17:49
Speaker
Many of which, like I mentioned, Bakshash is only one road into that town in that village, even today, way up into the mountains.
00:17:59
Speaker
But I was in a standing in line at a coffee house to get a cappuccino in Berkeley.
00:18:08
Speaker
And there was a very, very tall gentleman in front of me wearing an unusual wool hat.
00:18:18
Speaker
And we turned around and we started to talk and he became, I found out that he was a Courageous tribesman who is now living in this area, who had recently moved here.
00:18:29
Speaker
And we became business partners when we learned about our mutual passion in rugs.
00:18:34
Speaker
That's quite a story.
00:18:36
Speaker
It was an amazing story of synchronicity, to be frank with you.
00:18:41
Speaker
It feels like somebody was looking out for you.
00:18:44
Speaker
Perhaps.
00:18:47
Speaker
Because he confirmed a lot of what I was seeing because of his background was until he was almost 20 years old, he was just in this isolated village.
00:18:58
Speaker
that was an ancestral village for centuries.
00:19:02
Speaker
They didn't even know how long because there's no written history.
00:19:07
Speaker
Wow.
00:19:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:09
Speaker
So going back to the, to our curious object, to this, this rug, I know it's not for sale and I'm not going to try to change your mind about that, but if you imagine for a second that I'm a prospective buyer and that you are trying to sell it to me, or at least sell me on it as a, as an object, what would you tell me about it?
00:19:29
Speaker
What's your, what's your sales pitch for that piece?
00:19:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:33
Speaker
Number one, I don't believe in sales pitch.
00:19:36
Speaker
But at the same time, what I would say about that or any rug is that it's the relationship between the macrocosm, which is the rug as a whole, and the microcosm.
00:19:49
Speaker
And that every element in the rug needs to be in harmony with every other element.
00:19:58
Speaker
It's like if you look, if you just take a walk through the forest and
00:20:02
Speaker
and you're a bit sensitive to the forest, there is a sense that one gets, and that is also scientific, that everything in that forest is in relationship to everything else.
00:20:17
Speaker
Like that tree, when it dies, it disintegrates and becomes soil, and it nurtures another tree to grow.
00:20:24
Speaker
Very simple example of everything that happens in nature.
00:20:28
Speaker
And that is what one of the things that they were portraying in the rugs.
00:20:33
Speaker
And that man had a place in nature to nurture it and vitalize it.
00:20:40
Speaker
Now, which is, again, another lesson that we badly need today.
00:20:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:46
Speaker
And to get a little into the weeds about it, what would you say about quality and condition and all of those details?
00:20:54
Speaker
Okay.
00:20:55
Speaker
One of the great misnomers about antique rugs is that not count is paramount.
00:21:02
Speaker
It is not by any means.
00:21:05
Speaker
Some of the most valuable and most beautiful rugs are Caucasian rugs that were made high in the mountains of...
00:21:13
Speaker
of Central Asia and the Caucasian range.
00:21:17
Speaker
And they are rather loosely woven like certain Caucasian Kazakhs, which can be incredibly moving, have 50 or 60 knots per square range.
00:21:28
Speaker
And then there are 20th century Persian rugs where the knot count is 500 knots a square inch.
00:21:34
Speaker
But at the same time, they're just so repetitive because the weaver became a machine, a knot making machine.
00:21:46
Speaker
Now I have very strong opinions.
00:21:47
Speaker
The artistic aspect was removed and the weaver was just following a pattern.
00:21:54
Speaker
I feel like if the weaver is acting as a machine, why don't you just have a machine maker?
00:22:02
Speaker
Right.
00:22:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:04
Speaker
But it's the heart and soul, what it expresses and what it evokes is the beauty of the rug.
00:22:11
Speaker
And that's what my clients fall in love with.
00:22:13
Speaker
What's the knot count on this rug?
00:22:17
Speaker
The one we've been discussing?
00:22:18
Speaker
It's about 125 knots per square inch.
00:22:20
Speaker
So not especially high, but you're saying that doesn't matter.
00:22:27
Speaker
It does not matter.
00:22:28
Speaker
In certain types of rugs, it does matter.
00:22:30
Speaker
Persian city rugs, where they're all about the intricacy.
00:22:34
Speaker
But at the same time, it's what the knot expresses, what the knot count expresses, not the knot count itself.
00:22:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:43
Speaker
So has your mentality around this rug or the way you sort of see it and understand it and appreciate it, has that evolved over the course of your career?
00:22:54
Speaker
I fall in love with it more.
00:22:55
Speaker
You know, almost everything in our life, there's a point where it gives us great satisfaction, we're elated by it, but then that diminishes over time.
00:23:11
Speaker
And almost everything as we get to know it fully.
00:23:16
Speaker
A great rug like I have rugs that I've seen for almost 70 years now because of them.
00:23:24
Speaker
They came from my family members.
00:23:26
Speaker
They're still growing on me.
00:23:28
Speaker
I'm still seeing things in them that I did not recognize whatsoever at the beginning because there is so much invested in them by those people.
00:23:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:42
Speaker
So you've fallen in love with this rug more than once.
00:23:45
Speaker
I've fallen in love with this rug.
00:23:46
Speaker
Every time I see it, I fall in love with it more.
00:23:48
Speaker
It's behind my desk.
00:23:51
Speaker
And I see it every day.
00:23:53
Speaker
And I would not give it up for the world.
00:23:56
Speaker
So, I mean, you've had it throughout your whole career.
00:24:00
Speaker
Was there ever a time when maybe things were tough when, you know, the end of the month was coming around, you weren't sure what you were going to do and you thought maybe you should consider selling it?
00:24:10
Speaker
Well, you know, we have been very fortunate in a few things.
00:24:16
Speaker
One, I was always told by family members to follow your passion and to follow it with intensity and that everything will go well.
00:24:24
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which I have always done.
00:24:26
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And we were very fortunate that we started our little tiny company right at the beginning when the computer industry was taking off in Silicon Valley.
00:24:38
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So our original clientele, the type of people that would walk in the door, I do not name names.
00:24:43
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I have a policy against that.
00:24:46
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But many people who are also in their 20s, I started the company when I was 25, walked in the door.
00:24:53
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They became the computer titans in the computer industry.
00:25:00
Speaker
You never had to consider putting that rug out for sale.
00:25:04
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No, sir.
00:25:04
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No.
00:25:07
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we've worked very very hard and it's the interesting thing is when you're passionate about something when you're deeply passionate um it doesn't feel like work like like it's been fun the fun of the same people say you know you're kind of gray now and you know aren't you don't you think about retiring i say what else would i do that's right so much of all the antique dealers i know across all the different disciplines
00:25:32
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they never retire.
00:25:34
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It's an amazing thing.
00:25:37
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Something to look forward to in my future, I hope.
00:25:40
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Yeah, I feel very, very, very fortunate.
00:25:44
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And there's been some very fortuitous occurrences that have happened as well.
00:25:52
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Well, and so now you have a huge inventory.
00:25:55
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We're sitting in your shop now and you have gallery after gallery full of rugs.
00:26:01
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And we'll explore that in more detail next episode.
00:26:04
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But I assume, you know, at this point you've handled so many rugs and many of them have been, I imagine, more important and more rare and more...
00:26:13
Speaker
more valuable than this first one that you acquired.
00:26:17
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But has there ever been another rug that felt special to you in the way that this one does?
00:26:24
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Well, there are many.
00:26:25
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And we do, my wife and I do have our own private collection.
00:26:29
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And at this point, and at the same time, we have clients who over time have the same level of passion and almost the same level of what we call the eye, the ability to see into the rug that we do.
00:26:44
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Really, our mission is to find rear rugs through private collectors and then sell them to people who are either collectors now or perhaps will become collectors.
00:26:55
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So, we're in a very fortuitous situation.
00:27:00
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Yes, we're surrounded by many, many rugs.
00:27:04
Speaker
You know, our inventory is over 2,500 pieces.
00:27:07
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But that's not the point.
00:27:08
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The point is we only deal in really special pieces.
00:27:13
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which are not just furnishing items.
00:27:18
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They are an art form.
00:27:20
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And to a greater or less extent, they express the artistic principles of balance and harmony that I've been talking about.
00:27:30
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If they don't have that, if a rug is flat, if it's cold, it has no business to be in my image.
00:27:37
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Now, these rugs, they last generations, lifetimes and lifetimes.
00:27:42
Speaker
And so your rug, our curious object, will presumably outlive you and will eventually be in someone else's hands.
00:27:52
Speaker
And I wonder how you think about that.
00:27:53
Speaker
And if you can imagine somebody else developing a relationship with it as you have.
00:28:01
Speaker
That's an interesting question.
00:28:05
Speaker
Well, let's put it that way, this way.
00:28:07
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Let's say this Baksha Isra, or this Dragon and Phoenix rug we've been talking about, let's say maybe in its lifetime, because it's early 19th century, maybe it's had six or seven owners.
00:28:18
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It has given great joy and fulfillment to not only its owners, and it's not just
00:28:27
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The pride of I own something fantastic.
00:28:31
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That's very cheap for me.
00:28:34
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But I own something that is giving back to me every day.
00:28:41
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I think that's what's precious about a great work of art or particularly great rugs.
00:28:48
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So I think whoever the next owner might be, that if that rug gives them the same level of passion and fulfillment that it's given me, and if it gives their circle of family and friends that, I think that the rug has fulfilled its mission.
00:29:09
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Well, Jan and David Winnitz, thanks so much for joining me.
00:29:11
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And we'll be back with you again for next episode, looking at some rugs from your retail collection.
00:29:20
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Until then, today's episode was edited and produced by Sammy Delati with social media and web support from Sarah Bellata.
00:29:26
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Sarah Holt is our digital media and editorial associate.
00:29:30
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Our music is by Trap Rabbit, and I'm Ben Miller.