TURKISH SILK RUG 47*94 HEREKE

Hereke carpets are Turkish handmade carpets produced and sold in Hereke, a coastal town in Turkey. For a long time, they used to be produced only in Hereke, 60 km from Istanbul. 

The Ottoman sultan Abdülmecid I founded the Hereke Imperial Manufacture in 1841 to produce all the textiles for his Dolmabahçe Palace on the Bosphorus. He gathered the best artists and carpet weavers of the Ottoman Empire in Hereke, where they began producing high-quality rugs and large carpets with unique patterns.^[3]

After completing work on the Dolmabahçe Palace, the Ottoman sultans used to give Hereke carpets as gifts to selected visiting royalty, noblemen and statesmen. It was not until 1890 that some traders in Istanbul were allowed to sell some of the pieces made at Hereke. With the end of the Ottoman Empire, the production of Hereke carpets was restricted until the middle of the 20th century, when some master-weavers in Hereke began once more to produce the carpets in continuation of the tradition of the Ottoman palace carpets.