Page 41 - Decorative Arts, Part II: Far Eastern Ceramics and Paintings, Persian and Indian Rugs and Carpets

described the "fanciers, who walk through the entire house without once raising their eyes from the floor. On
entering the Rembrandt Room recently, one of them cried: 'Magnificent!'—of the rug, however, not the pic-
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tures." When Joseph Widener's daughter-in-law commented that the floors of Lynnewood Hall "were made of
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eggs," she was probably alluding to his reluctance to have people walk on the Indo-Persian carpets.
RWT

I would like to acknowledge my debt to the late Charles Grant Ellis, the first person to study the collec-
tion, and my friend Hagop Barin, who taught me how to appreciate the art of the loom.

NOTES
1. The entire collection is listed in Widener 1935,129-136. The remainder of the collection was auctioned in 1944; the rugs and carpets
are listed and illustrated in The Valuable Furnishings and Objects of Art at "Lynnewood Hall" The Residence of the Late Joseph E. Widener.
Samuel T. Freeman & Co., Philadelphia, 20-24 June 1944,126-135.
2. Valentiner 1910, 48-49, 62.
3. Obituary, New York Times, 27 October 1943.
4. Edith Appleton Standen Papers, Rare MSS 7, NGA Archives.
5. "The Perfect Collector," Fortune, vol. VI, no. 3 (September 1932): 63, 64.
6. P.A.B. Widener. Without Drums. New York, 1940, 76.

W I D E N E R R U G S
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