Kashmir Carpet

Kashmir Carpet

Subject – Art and Culture

Context – Kashmir’s famed hand­-knotted carpet, with its intricate and colourful floral patterns, adorned a special cover of the Indian Postal Service this week.

Concept –

• A Kashmir rug is a hand-knotted oriental rug from Kashmir valley in India, which is associated with Kashmiri handicrafts.
• Kashmir rugs or carpets have intricate designs that are primarily oriental, floral style in a range of colors, sizes and quality.
• They are primarily made using pure wool, pure silk and occasionally wool and silk blends.
• Kashmir rugs are renowned to have bright, jewel-like color tones such as sapphire blue, ruby red, emerald green, aquamarine, amethyst, and ivory.
• The Kashmir carpet faces tough competition internationally from the products of countries such as China, Turkey and Belgium, and internally from carpets manufactured in Jaipur, Agra, Bhadohi and Amritsar.
• Around 80,000 people are associated with carpet manufacturing in Kashmir, which saw a major jump in both manufacturing and exports post­1990, with the production going up from ₹84.55 crore in 1990-­91 to ₹821.5 crore in 2016­-17.