Karl Pertl’s workshop has the sound quality of a recording studio — there are that many old, semi-antique and antique carpets on the wall.
Based in Tasmania, the internationally renowned expert is constantly surprised by what comes through his door.
Recently, fragments of an antique rug found in an abandoned building during a family campervanning holiday in Europe were brought to Mr Pertl and identified to be almost 400 years old.
Mr Pertl, who is semi-retired and training his son Neysan Pertl, says he has worked with carpets in Tasmania that date to the 15th century.
His career started in 1976, when he worked for Europe’s largest Persian carpet wholesaler.
It was there that Mr Pertl fell in love with the patterns that he describes as being rendered in a “Renaissance colour palette” of “vivid blue, warm reds, Venetian reds, ochres and golden ochres”.
Migration to Tasmania came when the Canadian-born, German-English Mr Pertl decided to move his family from Israel, where he worked as a curator for one of the largest antique rug collections in the world, to a place he said was more stable to raise a family.
In his adopted home Mr Pertl has discovered many inherited pieces from migrants, who have passed carpets down as family heirlooms.
“There are very surprising cases in Tasmania,” he said.
“People have exceptional pieces and stories associated with them.”
An antique carpet Mr Pertl valued at $20,000 is one such example.
It was buried with the family dog after it died on the carpet.
The owner later took a photo of the rug to Mr Pertl and explained what had happened.
“He showed me a picture of the carpet and I looked at it and said, ‘Wow, that’s a very special piece,'” Mr Pertl said.
“I said to him, ‘Unfortunately that’s a $20,000 carpet’ — he got a very red face and, swearing at the top of his voice, he ran off.”
From rags to riches
Recently Mr Pertl created a digital reconstruction based on fragments of a rug found in an abandoned building in Europe.
The family of Hobart woman Leonie were campervanning their way around Europe in 1979 when the discovery was made.
“My sisters went exploring one day and found these pieces,” she said.
“They dragged this rag back to the campervan and for the next eighteen months of travel, mum kept them in the van.”
Leonie was unsure of the information her mother had passed onto her about the fragments of rug that were repurposed into household items upon the family’s return to Australia.
“She framed one, made one into a cushion and another was in a big bolster,” Leonie said.
Restoration and identification work by Mr Pertl on another rug Leonie’s mother gave her made the Hobart woman curious about the history of the fragments.
The first piece turned out to be from an extinct tribe in the Atlas Mountains of north-western Africa.
“As he was looking at the fragments he found a date in Islamic script,” Leonie said.
It translated to 1633.
Tulip, pomegranate and leaf motifs in the fragments reveal more about its origins.
Mr Pertl believes the 17th century prayer rug may have been woven by people with Christian ancestry who used the number of motifs displayed on the rug as a secret code when living under a different belief system to their own.
He valued the pieces, now affixed to a material reconstruction of what the rug would have looked like, at a minimum of $20,000.
The monetary value is inconsequential to Leonie, who said its connection to her mother and the story behind it made were what made it special to her.
“The fact that my mother treasured it makes me treasure it,” she said.
The evolution of the craft
Changing processes could mean handmade carpets soon become much more valuable.
Mr Pertl said Middle Eastern carpets, known for being handmade by professional knotters, were increasingly machine-made.
He said the change meant handmade carpets would become “rarer and more expensive”.
“The younger generations are not sitting down anymore, tediously knotting carpets,” Mr Pertl said.
But among owners Mr Pertl and his son, Neysan, have noticed an opposite trend and interest in getting inherited works restored.
“A lot of friends I have of European background have a connection with carpets,” Neysan Pertl said.
The two experts and Leonie recommend having a rug that might be special professionally valued.
Mr Pertl said he had come across “superbly done” forgeries that mimic the ageing process, so investing in or researching a carpet should be done by someone you trust.
“We check indicators like the pattern, colour combinations and aspect ratios, as the length and width of carpets were changed after the World Exhibition in the 1800s, when it was realised the typical European living room is a certain size,” he said.
Leonie said there was much to gain by investigating.
“If you really love it, no matter what it’s like, go and find out its value and find out its story” she said.
