Matt Camron Rugs and Tapestries

Matt Camron Rugs and Tapestries at 1651 Wisconsin Avenue NW is a specialist in antique and decorative rugs and tapestries in the upper Georgetown commercial corridor, offering the antique Oriental rugs, French Aubusson tapestries, and the decorative flatweaves that the Georgetown residential market values for the combination of their decorative quality and their status as woven objects with art historical significance.

The antique Oriental rug market is one of the most complex in the decorative arts: the traditional weaving regions of Persia, Anatolia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia each produced distinct rug traditions with their own knotting techniques, dye traditions, and design vocabularies, and the rug dealer’s expertise involves the knowledge to distinguish the regional and period variations that determine both the historical significance and the market value of a specific rug. The Tabriz workshop carpet, the Kurdish tribal weaving, the Oushak medallion carpet from Anatolia, and the flatwoven kilim of the Balkans all represent different traditions within the antique rug category that the specialist dealer can present and explain.

The Georgetown residential market for antique rugs is sustained by the Federal-period and Victorian-era rooms that the neighborhood’s buildings provide: the wide-plank hardwood floors and the high-ceilinged parlors of the Georgetown townhouse are the setting for which the antique Oriental rug was originally produced, and the visual and tactile warmth that the antique rug adds to the hardwood floor is the design decision that the Georgetown homeowner makes generation after generation.

Hours run Monday through Saturday. The antique rug selection process typically begins with the room in which the rug will be placed, and the specific dimensions, the existing floor material, the dominant colors of the room’s furniture and walls, and the quality of the natural light that the room receives. The antique rug specialist assists with these preliminary considerations before any specific rug is introduced, which allows the selection process to narrow from the full inventory to the specific rugs that the room’s requirements make appropriate.

The Georgetown homeowner who is furnishing the Federal-period townhouse with antique rugs is making a historically appropriate decision: the Oriental rug was among the most prized possessions of the Federal-period American house, and the Georgetown townhouses of the early nineteenth century were furnished with the best rugs that their owners could acquire. Matt Camron Rugs and Tapestries at 1651 Wisconsin serves this tradition of the Georgetown antique rug acquisition in the specialist format that the serious collector requires. Hours run Monday through Saturday. The rug specialist relationship at Matt Camron Rugs and Tapestries at 1651 Wisconsin extends beyond the initial purchase to the ongoing care and cleaning guidance that the antique rug requires to maintain its condition over the decades of its Georgetown domestic life. The antique rug in the Georgetown home is an investment that benefits from the specialist relationship with the dealer who knows the specific rug’s characteristics and requirements. Hours run Monday through Saturday.