An antique north China rug is a hand knotted wool carpet from the belt of weaving towns that runs along the northern edge of China, from Gansu in the west through Ningxia to Baotou in Inner Mongolia. Three of the names that belt produced sit in our collection without a guide of their own: Baotou, Mongolian and Kansu, which is also spelled Gansu. Together they are 72 of the antique rugs we currently hold, and they are the subject of this guide.
They are worth taking together because they are one weaving region, and worth separating because they do not cost the same. The names are a rough proxy for a date, and in this group the date is what moves the money.
Everything below was measured on 29 October 2026 from our own live stock, across the 4,839 in stock antique rugs we hold that day: 72 in this group and 4,767 others. Nothing here is carried over from an earlier page, because these numbers move as stock turns.
Key takeaways
- Three names, one region. 42 Baotou, 24 Mongolian and 6 Kansu, 72 in all, with no overlap at all with our Peking, Ningxia, Khotan, Tibetan or art deco titles.
- The names are really dates. Mongolian is 75 percent nineteenth century with not one circa 1920 piece. Baotou is 69 percent circa 1920 with only 3 nineteenth century pieces. Kansu is nineteenth century throughout.
- Baotou is small and inexpensive, not cheap. Median 3,600 dollars and 23 square feet. Against rugs of the same measured area it runs 0.82 to 1.43 times, and 0.94 times in its main band. That is the market price.
- Mongolian carries a real premium, about half of which is its age. 286 dollars a square foot against 191 for Baotou. Matched on area alone the premium is 1.40 to 2.52 times; matched on area and age it is 1.14 to 1.60 times.
- Motifs are the signature. Greek key fret 7.80 times the catalogue rate, the wan or swastika 11.14 times, animals 6.25 times, pictorial scenes 4.81 times, birds 3.71 times, cloud bands 3.28 times.
- They are not tribal. The tribal design value appears on 1 of our 72, which is 0.07 times the catalogue rate.
- Ivory first, blue second, and blue is below average. Ivory 1.80 times, brown 2.13 times, blue 0.59 times, despite what our own archive description says.
What counts as a north China rug
The short definition: a hand knotted wool carpet woven in the northern Chinese weaving belt between roughly 1850 and 1930, decorated with an open ground, a fret border and a small number of symbolic motifs, in a palette built on ivory and camel tones rather than the red and indigo of Persian weaving.
The names are towns and provinces rather than tribes. Baotou is a town on the Yellow River in Inner Mongolia. Gansu, which older dealers and our own catalogue still spell Kansu, is the province running west of it along the old Silk Road corridor. Mongolian, in rug usage, is a region and design name covering carpets woven in and around Inner Mongolia rather than a claim about the Mongolian republic. Ningxia, which has its own guide, is the oldest and most famous name in the same belt.
Our records keep the three apart cleanly. Of the 42 rugs titled Baotou, 41 carry the Baotou Rugs type value. Of the 24 titled Mongolian, 22 carry Mongolian Design Rugs. All 6 Kansu rugs carry Kansu / Gansu Rugs. Not one rug in the group is titled with two of the three names, and not one overlaps our Ningxia, Peking, Khotan, Tibetan or Chinese art deco titles.
All 72 are wool. 71 of 72 are hand knotted pile; the single exception is a 36 by 120 inch orange flat woven Mongolian runner at 7,200 dollars, and its title says flat weave too, so the record agrees with itself.
The three names are really three dates
This is the single most useful thing in our data about this group, and it is not something a photograph will tell you.
| Name | In stock | Nineteenth century | Circa 1920 | Median area | Median price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baotou | 42 | 3 of 42 (7.1%) | 29 of 42 | 23.2 sq ft | 3,600 dollars |
| Mongolian | 24 | 18 of 24 (75.0%) | 0 of 24 | 76.7 sq ft | 22,500 dollars |
| Kansu / Gansu | 6 | 6 of 6 (100%) | 0 of 6 | 48.9 sq ft | 13,600 dollars |
| All other antiques | 4,767 | 29.2% | 30.2% | 61.8 sq ft | 9,800 dollars |
Read the circa 1920 column again. Twenty nine of our 42 Baotous carry it and not one of the 24 Mongolians does. The two names are almost perfectly sorted by period. Across the whole group circa 1860 appears at 13.24 times the catalogue rate, because 7 of the 42 circa 1860 rugs in our entire collection are in this group of 72, while circa 1920 sits at 1.33 times and circa 1930 at 0.29 times. The group is simultaneously older and younger than average, because it is two groups.
That matters commercially because our catalogue, like every antique market, charges for age. Measured today across the whole collection, nineteenth century rugs cost about 1.5 times as much per square foot as later ones at every size we can test: 1.51 times in the 20 to 45 square foot band (n=393 against 746), 1.57 times at 30 to 60, 1.62 times at 40 to 80 and 1.53 times at 15 to 35. So a group that is 75 percent nineteenth century will look expensive and a group that is 7 percent nineteenth century will look cheap, before anyone has said a word about quality.
What they cost, and what the price tags hide
The headline numbers are the ones that mislead, so here they are with the correction attached. Our 72 run a median of 7,100 dollars against 9,800 for our other antiques, which reads as 0.72 times, a discount. But the median rug in this group covers 33.0 square feet and the median rug elsewhere in the collection covers 61.8, so the two medians are describing different objects.
Per square foot the direction reverses: 233 dollars against 166. That number is also not safe on its own, because price per square foot is not flat against area in our stock. Measured today it runs 267 dollars in the smallest tenth of the collection, falls to 115 dollars at 87 to 105 square feet, and climbs back to 161 dollars in the largest tenth. A small format group will always read dear against the whole catalogue and a large format group will always read cheap.
So every figure below is matched on measured area, and then matched again on age, with the number of rugs in each cut shown. Cuts with fewer than three of ours are not published at all.
Baotou, matched on area
| Area band | Our Baotous | Same area antiques | Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 to 15 sq ft | n=14, 296 dollars | n=503, 208 dollars | 1.43x |
| 10 to 25 sq ft | n=16, 184 dollars | n=694, 196 dollars | 0.94x |
| 15 to 35 sq ft | n=20, 167 dollars | n=1,006, 203 dollars | 0.82x |
| 20 to 45 sq ft | n=18, 173 dollars | n=1,139, 199 dollars | 0.87x |
| 30 to 60 sq ft | n=13, 189 dollars | n=998, 190 dollars | 0.99x |
| 40 to 80 sq ft | n=7, 145 dollars | n=950, 168 dollars | 0.86x |
Five of the six bands sit between 0.82 and 0.99 times. The exception is the smallest band, where the tiniest Baotous run 1.43 times, which is the ordinary behaviour of very small rugs everywhere. The honest summary is that a Baotou is priced at the market for what it is.
Mongolian, matched on area
| Area band | Our Mongolians | Same area antiques | Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20 to 45 sq ft | n=4, 417 dollars | n=1,139, 199 dollars | 2.09x |
| 30 to 60 sq ft | n=6, 267 dollars | n=998, 190 dollars | 1.40x |
| 40 to 80 sq ft | n=8, 270 dollars | n=950, 168 dollars | 1.60x |
| 60 to 100 sq ft | n=5, 250 dollars | n=691, 149 dollars | 1.68x |
| 80 to 130 sq ft | n=4, 258 dollars | n=1,035, 125 dollars | 2.06x |
| 100 to 160 sq ft | n=5, 313 dollars | n=1,010, 124 dollars | 2.52x |
| 250 to 600 sq ft | n=3, 201 dollars | n=221, 182 dollars | 1.10x |
The same comparison with age matched as well
Those Mongolian ratios are honest about area and silent about age, and 18 of the 24 are nineteenth century. Compare them only with nineteenth century rugs of the same area and the premium roughly halves.
| Area band | Our nineteenth century Mongolians | Same area, same period | Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20 to 45 sq ft | n=3, 541 dollars | n=393, 255 dollars | 2.12x |
| 30 to 60 sq ft | n=4, 357 dollars | n=343, 248 dollars | 1.44x |
| 40 to 80 sq ft | n=7, 289 dollars | n=315, 233 dollars | 1.24x |
| 60 to 100 sq ft | n=5, 250 dollars | n=212, 220 dollars | 1.14x |
| 80 to 130 sq ft | n=4, 258 dollars | n=240, 199 dollars | 1.30x |
| 100 to 160 sq ft | n=4, 303 dollars | n=230, 189 dollars | 1.60x |
| 40 to 160 sq ft | n=12, 289 dollars | n=637, 212 dollars | 1.36x |
Do the same for Baotou, comparing our 39 later ones only with later rugs of the same area, and it lands at 1.09 times in the 10 to 25 band (n=15), 0.95 times at 15 to 35 (n=18), 1.02 times at 20 to 45 (n=16), 1.19 times at 30 to 60 (n=11) and 1.05 times at 40 to 80 (n=6). The smallest band stays high at 1.56 times (n=13).
Our 6 Kansu rugs are all nineteenth century, so only the age matched reading applies: 1.24 times at 30 to 60 square feet (n=4) and 1.22 times at 40 to 80 (n=5). Six rugs is too few to conclude much, and we would rather say so than dress it up.
The conclusion the data supports, stated plainly: a Mongolian carpet is worth something like 1.2 to 1.4 times a comparable antique of the same size and period, a Kansu about the same, and a Baotou about the same as anything else of its size and date. Most of the apparent gulf between a 3,600 dollar Baotou and a 22,500 dollar Mongolian is that one is a 1920s scatter rug and the other is a nineteenth century room size carpet.
Inside the group, size predicts almost nothing
The correlation between area and price per square foot across all 72 is plus 0.14, which is nothing, and the spread runs 38 fold, from a 46 by 72 inch Baotou at 980 dollars, or 43 dollars a square foot, to a 138 by 144 inch nineteenth century Kansu square at 225,000 dollars, or 1,630 dollars a square foot. That single rug is the most expensive thing in the group by a factor of nearly two and it sits in every Kansu figure above, which is one more reason to read the n column.
Baotou in detail
Baotou is the entry point to antique Chinese weaving, and the reason is format rather than quality. 33 of our 42 carry the small scatter size value, the 3 by 5 and 4 by 6 standard sizes are over represented, and the median is 23 square feet. A rug that size costs less than a room size one at the same price per foot, which is the whole of the story.
The decoration is the second reason to look. Baotou is where our pictorial and bird rugs concentrate: 13 of our 42 Baotous carry the bird value and not one of the 24 Mongolians does, 9 carry a pictorial scene against none of the Mongolians, and 9 carry an animal value. The cranes and deer that turn up again and again are standard Chinese emblems of long life. A 36 by 60 inch crane and reindeer Baotou at 1,800 dollars and a 26 by 51 inch one at 2,000 dollars are the usual scale for them.
Colour runs ivory and camel first, then blue, then brown. 18 of the 42 carry ivory, beige or cream, 9 carry blue and 8 carry brown earth tones, which at 2.13 times the catalogue rate is the colour that most distinguishes the group. A 27 by 54 inch classic blue and ivory scatter Baotou at 2,400 dollars is the archetype, and a 58 by 82 inch coral geometric one at 2,400 dollars shows how far 2,400 dollars stretches when the rug is three times the area, at 73 dollars a square foot against 237.
At the top of the Baotou range the rugs get larger rather than finer. A 110 by 144 inch dragon and cloud band Baotou in coral at 21,000 dollars is the most expensive we hold, a 61 by 211 inch purple one at 13,500 dollars is the longest, and a 74 by 82 inch square blue geometric at 11,000 dollars is one of the eleven squares in the group.
The exception that proves the date argument is a 52 by 84 inch ivory Baotou dated to the 1890s at 11,700 dollars. At 386 dollars a square foot it is the dearest Baotou per foot we hold, roughly double the Baotou median, and it is one of only three in the group carrying a nineteenth century date. The name did not change. The date did.
Mongolian in detail
The Mongolian group is the opposite shape: older, bigger, and the only part of this family that reaches room size and above. 10 of the 24 carry the room size value and all four of the group’s oversized rugs are here. The median is 76.7 square feet against 23.2 for Baotou.
The drawing is more formal. 16 of the 24 carry a geometric value and 15 carry a central medallion, against 18 and 15 of the 42 Baotous, and the field is usually an open ivory ground with a single medallion and a fret border. 18 of the 24 carry ivory, which is the highest share of any colour anywhere in this group, and not one of the 24 carries blue as a primary colour.
The range runs from a 24 by 70 inch yellow scatter Mongolian at 2,800 dollars and a 34 by 67 inch swastika medallion at 4,300 dollars through the middle at 48 by 90 inches in white and blue for 8,800 dollars, an 85 by 91 inch square at 11,700 dollars and an 84 by 114 inch cream floral at 14,100 dollars, up to the large carpets: a 142 by 146 inch square animal design at 45,000 dollars, a 122 by 236 inch ivory room size at 62,400 dollars, a 204 by 206 inch square at 83,000 dollars and a 138 by 255 inch oversized carpet at 118,000 dollars, which at 483 dollars a square foot is the dearest Mongolian per foot we hold.
Two rugs in that list are worth comparing directly, because they are both 22,500 dollars. A 68 by 88 inch mid nineteenth century neutral geometric works out at 541 dollars a square foot. A 202 by 214 inch square carpet in dusty rose and camel works out at 75 dollars. Same money, seven times the floor, and both are reasonable prices for what they are. This is the clearest argument we can make for shopping by price per square foot rather than by price.
Kansu, or Gansu, in detail
Six rugs is a sample, not a population, and nothing in this section should be read as a general claim about the type. What our six do have in common is that they are all nineteenth century, all wool pile, and that coral is the leading colour on three of the six, which is the only place in this group where coral leads.
They run from a 72 by 102 inch coral Kansu at 11,700 dollars through a 43 by 207 inch coral runner at 13,600 dollars and a 74 by 79 inch nineteenth century red geometric square at 18,800 dollars to the 225,000 dollar square mentioned above. Two of the six are titled hallway runner and are not runners, which is dealt with below.
The motifs, and what they are
This is where the group is genuinely distinctive, and the numbers are not close. For what the individual emblems mean, our note on antique Chinese rug symbols and their meanings goes through them one by one.
| Motif value | In this group | Other antiques | Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Swastika, the wan | 17 of 72 (23.6%) | 2.1% | 11.14x |
| Greek key and fret | 39 of 72 (54.2%) | 6.9% | 7.80x |
| Animal | 10 of 72 (13.9%) | 2.2% | 6.25x |
| Scenic pictorial | 9 of 72 (12.5%) | 2.6% | 4.81x |
| Protective symbol | 14 of 72 (19.4%) | 4.7% | 4.18x |
| Bird | 15 of 72 (20.8%) | 5.6% | 3.71x |
| Cloud band | 11 of 72 (15.3%) | 4.7% | 3.28x |
| Vase | 12 of 72 (16.7%) | 8.6% | 1.94x |
| Dragon | 5 of 72 (6.9%) | 3.5% | 1.96x |
The swastika is the wan, and it is Buddhist
Western buyers are regularly brought up short by this motif, so it is worth being exact. The shape on these carpets is the wan, a Chinese character and Buddhist emblem meaning ten thousand, used for centuries as a symbol of eternity and good fortune and locked into borders and fretwork all over Chinese decorative art. It predates the twentieth century European use of the shape by well over a thousand years and has nothing whatever to do with it. Our catalogue files it under the swastika motif value, which is the conventional cataloguing word, and 17 of our 72 carry it against 2.1 percent of everything else. A 34 by 67 inch Mongolian swastika medallion rug at 4,300 dollars is a clean example of the border treatment.
The fret border
What our catalogue calls Greek key or running dog is, on a Chinese carpet, the meander or thunder fret, a right angled band that runs round the field and often frames the medallion as well. It is on 39 of our 72, which is the single most reliable visual marker of the group, and it crosses all three names: 21 of 42 Baotous, 16 of 24 Mongolians and 2 of 6 Kansus.
What these rugs are not
Not tribal, and not nomadic weaving
The trade reaches for the word tribal whenever a rug comes from somewhere with grassland in it. Our records do not support it here: 1 of our 72 carries the tribal design value against 20.8 percent of our other antiques, a rate of 0.07 times, and it is the lowest tribal share of any group we have measured. For contrast, our Turkmen rugs, which genuinely are tribal weavings, run 4.15 times. These are workshop carpets, woven on fixed looms, in standard sizes, with regular drawing, for town and export sale.
Not Mongolia the country
There is a real craft tradition in Mongolia proper, largely felt and shaggy pile, and we have a separate page on Mongolian rugs and their history that covers it. It is not what the 24 carpets in this guide are. 17 of those 24 say Chinese in their own titles, usually in the form Antique Chinese Mongolian, and the rest sit in the same group by construction and design. Our own Origins field is split on this point and we take that up below rather than pretending otherwise.
Not art deco, and not Peking
None of the 72 is titled art deco and none is titled Peking, which surprised us enough to check twice. The Chinese deco carpets of the 1920s and 1930s, made mostly in Tientsin for export and covered in our Walter Nichols guide and in Peking versus Ningxia versus art deco, are a different product of the same decades: thicker, carved, far larger, and designed for American rooms, and our antique Peking rugs guide covers the other big northern export name. A circa 1920 Baotou is a conservative small rug in the old northern idiom, woven at the same moment for a different buyer.
Where this group sits among the Chinese rugs we hold
Every figure in this table was measured on 29 October 2026 rather than carried over, because stock turns and these numbers move with it.
| Group | In stock | Median price | Median area | Per square foot |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ningxia | 138 | 13,300 dollars | 38.7 sq ft | 410 dollars |
| North China (this guide) | 72 | 7,100 dollars | 33.0 sq ft | 233 dollars |
| Peking | 639 | 11,700 dollars | 98.9 sq ft | 162 dollars |
| Khotan | 42 | 9,000 dollars | 68.2 sq ft | 128 dollars |
| Chinese art deco | 536 | 9,800 dollars | 101.6 sq ft | 111 dollars |
| All other antiques | 4,760 | 9,800 dollars | 61.8 sq ft | 166 dollars |
Two readings, and they rank differently. By price tag this group is the cheapest Chinese weaving we hold. By price per square foot it is second only to Ningxia, and nearly twice Peking. The difference is entirely that this group is small and the Peking and deco carpets are not. Our Khotan guide covers the neighbouring East Turkestan weaving to the west, which is the group this one is most often confused with, and its rugs run wide and long where these run small and square.
Sizes, squares and the word runner
42 of the 72 are scatter size, 1.71 times the catalogue rate, and room size runs 0.60 times. That is a buying constraint worth knowing before you fall in love with the look: if you need a 9 by 12, this is not the group, and our records show the 3 by 5 and 4 by 6 sizes at 2.44 and 1.83 times while 9 by 12 sits at 0.23 times and 10 by 14 at 0.25 times.
The exception is squares. Square rugs run 1.41 times here, and the group holds 11 of them: 6 by 6 at 3.68 times, 11 by 11 at 4.51 times and 15 by 17 at 4.97 times the catalogue rate. A genuinely square antique carpet is hard to find and these are a real source of them, from a 66 by 72 inch brown Baotou at 7,800 dollars and a 69 by 74 inch 1920s Baotou at 6,700 dollars up to a 126 by 132 inch ivory Mongolian room size square at 60,000 dollars and a 194 by 222 inch Mongolian at 60,000 dollars.
And here is the one piece of good news about our own record keeping. All 11 square claims in this group check out: title, shape field and tape measure agree on every one, with length to width ratios from 1.01 to 1.11. In four earlier guides we found exactly the opposite, rugs titled square that were not.
The word that fails here is runner. Four rugs in the group are titled hallway runner and are not runners: a 62 by 96 inch Kansu, a 66 by 102 inch Kansu, a 66 by 108 inch Baotou and a 66 by 108 inch Baotou, with ratios between 1.55 and 1.64. Those are area rugs. The real runners in the group look like 43 by 207 inches, 36 by 214 inches and 48 by 198 inches, at ratios between 4 and 6. Measure, do not read.
Construction, and what we do not record
All 72 are wool. 71 are hand knotted pile and one is a flat weave. Beyond that our records are quieter than most descriptions of Chinese rugs suggest, and it is worth saying what we cannot tell you.
We record no knot count for any of these 72, and none for any other antique in the collection either, so nothing on this page rests on fineness. Our guide to knots and KPSI explains why a knot count is a weaker buying signal than it is usually made to sound, and north China weaving is a good illustration: the drawing in this group is deliberately open and the knot count is not what anyone is paying for.
We also do not record warp and weft fibre. The materials field describes the pile face, which is why all 72 read wool. Our foundation guide covers what a cotton or wool foundation actually tells you and how to check it from the back of a rug, which is the only reliable way. If a seller tells you a Baotou has a cotton foundation, that may well be right, but our own records are not the evidence for it and neither is a photograph.
Dye is the same story. We have not tested these for natural versus synthetic dye, and our guide to natural and synthetic dyes sets out what you can and cannot read from a photograph. Where a date sits either side of 1900 the question matters, and in this group the dates straddle exactly that line.
A note on our own records
Three guides ago we started publishing what we find wrong in our own cataloguing rather than quietly fixing it, because a buyer deserves to know how much weight a title can carry. This group produced four findings.
The same weaving group is split across two countries
55 of the 72 are filed under Chinese origins and 17 under Mongolia, with one rug carrying both. The split runs almost exactly along the Mongolian name: 17 of the 24 Mongolian titled rugs are filed under the country Mongolia, while 17 of those same 24 say Chinese in the title. One field or the other is doing something different from what it looks like it is doing, and until that is settled a filter by origin will not return this group whole.
Ten rugs carry a family term with no family name in the title
Seven rugs carry the Baotou type value without the word Baotou anywhere in the title, including a 350 square foot oversized blue Chinese carpet at 142,500 dollars, which is the most expensive rug attached to the Baotou archive and is invisible to anyone searching the name. Three more carry the Mongolian value without the word. None of the ten is in any number on this page, which is counted from titles, and all ten are on the archive, which is counted from the term. That is why the archive shows more rugs than this guide counts.
Two rugs are filed in ways that cannot be right
A 46 by 74 inch 1900s Baotou at 6,800 dollars carries Origins American USA, which is its only origin value, so it cannot simply be removed without leaving the rug with no origin at all. The 202 by 214 inch Mongolian square at 22,500 dollars carries no Type or Style value whatever, so it appears on none of the three archives this guide is about. Both are flagged for correction rather than corrected quietly.
What our archive descriptions claim, measured
Our Baotou archive text says the palette is dominated by blues and creamy whites. Creamy whites holds and is understated: ivory runs 1.80 times the catalogue rate. Blue does not: it runs 0.59 times, below average, and not one of the 24 Mongolians carries it. The same text says the carpets are woven on cotton foundations and describes camel tones; we record neither, in any field, on any of the 72. Our Mongolian archive text calls them nomadic weavings of Central Asia, on a group that is 0.07 times tribal and 17 of 24 Chinese by its own titles. Our Kansu text names ivory, gold and orange and does not mention coral, which leads on three of the six. Those descriptions are being rewritten against the records.
How to buy one
- Decide which end of the group you are in. A 1920s Baotou scatter rug at two to six thousand dollars and a nineteenth century Mongolian room carpet at twenty to sixty thousand are not substitutes, and the word north China covers both.
- Get the date, and ask what it rests on. It is the biggest single lever on price in this group, worth about 1.5 times across our whole collection and visible here as a clean split between two names.
- Convert to price per square foot before comparing anything. Two rugs in this group cost 22,500 dollars each and differ sevenfold in area.
- Measure it. Four of our own titles say runner on rugs that are not runners. Ask for width and length in inches and do the division.
- Look at the back. Rows of knot collars for a pile rug, and the chance to see the foundation, the repairs and the honesty of the ends.
- Ask about repair and wear. These are wool carpets that have been on floors for a century or more, and ivory grounds show everything.
- Do not pay for a name you are not getting. Baotou, Mongolian and Kansu are regional labels applied by dealers, often loosely. Our own records show ten rugs carrying one of these labels with no sign of it in the title.
If you want to see the whole group rather than our selection, the three archives are Baotou rugs, Mongolian design rugs and Kansu and Gansu rugs, and the wider context is in our antique Chinese rugs guide, our page on the rugs of China and our note on what an antique Chinese rug is worth. For how the words antique, vintage and new are used here, see antique versus vintage versus new.
A note on our own method
Every ratio on this page compares our rugs with other antiques of closely matched measured area, and where a group has an unusual age profile, of matched period as well. We publish the number of rugs behind each cut and we do not publish a cut with fewer than three of ours in it.
This group forced a change in how we do that. Our earlier guides matched on area alone, which we adopted after finding that comparing a small rug with the whole collection flatters it. Age turns out to need the same treatment: our nineteenth century stock costs about 1.5 times as much per square foot as our later stock at every size, so a type that is unusually old reads expensive and a type that is unusually young reads cheap, before quality enters the argument. Where that affects figures published on our other guide pages, we are going back and correcting them rather than leaving them to stand.
Frequently asked questions
What is an antique Baotou rug?
A Baotou is a hand knotted wool carpet from Baotou, a town in Inner Mongolia in northern China. In our own stock it is a small, late rug: the 42 we hold run a median 23 square feet, 33 of the 42 carry the small scatter size value, 29 of 42 are recorded circa 1920 and only 3 of 42 carry a nineteenth century date. All 42 are wool and 42 of 42 are hand knotted pile. The usual decoration is an ivory or blue ground with a fret border and a sparse field, often with birds, animals or a small landscape.
How much does an antique Baotou rug cost?
Our 42 run from 980 dollars to 21,000 dollars with a median of 3,600. That looks like 0.37 times the 9,800 dollar median of our other antiques, but the comparison is meaningless because a Baotou is a scatter rug and the catalogue median is a room size one. Measured per square foot against antiques of the same measured area it runs 0.82 to 1.43 times depending on the band, and 0.94 times in the 10 to 25 square foot band where most of them sit. In plain terms it is priced at the market. Expect roughly 120 to 350 dollars a square foot.
What is the difference between a Baotou rug and a Mongolian rug?
In our records the difference is mostly a date and a size. The 24 rugs we title Mongolian are 75 percent nineteenth century, median 77 square feet and 22,500 dollars. The 42 we title Baotou are 7 percent nineteenth century, median 23 square feet and 3,600 dollars. Both come out of the same corner of northern China, both are hand knotted wool, and they share the fret border and the open ground. Per square foot Mongolian runs 286 dollars against Baotou at 191. Once you match on age as well as area, most of that gap closes: the Mongolian premium falls to about 1.36 times and Baotou sits at about 1.02 times.
Are Mongolian rugs actually made in Mongolia?
The ones we hold are north Chinese workshop carpets, not steppe weavings. Of the 24 we title Mongolian, 17 say Chinese in the title itself, usually as Antique Chinese Mongolian. Our own Origins field disagrees with itself here: 17 of them are filed under Mongolia and 8 under China, with one filed under both. Mongolia is used in the rug trade as a design and region name for carpets woven in Inner Mongolia and the neighbouring Chinese provinces, which is a different thing from the felt and pile weaving of Mongolia the country.
What is the swastika on a Chinese rug?
It is the wan, an ancient Chinese and Buddhist good fortune character meaning ten thousand or eternity, used in Chinese borders and fretwork for many centuries before the twentieth century European appropriation of the shape, with which it has nothing to do. It is one of the clearest markers of this group: 17 of our 72 carry the motif value against 2.1 percent of our other antiques, which is 11.14 times the rate. It usually appears repeated in a border or locked into a fret.
Are these tribal or nomadic rugs?
No, and the labels are worth resisting. Only 1 of our 72 carries the tribal design value against 20.8 percent of our other antiques, which is 0.07 times the rate. These are commercial workshop carpets woven on fixed looms for town and export markets, which is why the drawing is regular and the formats are standard. The nomadic associations belong to a different craft, mostly felt, and mostly in Mongolia the country.
How old are Baotou and Mongolian rugs?
The two names sit on opposite sides of 1900 in our stock. Mongolian is the older group at 18 of 24 nineteenth century, including 6 of the 42 circa 1860 rugs in our entire catalogue, and not one of the 24 carries a circa 1920 date. Baotou is the later group, with 29 of 42 at circa 1920 and only 3 at nineteenth century. All 6 Kansu rugs are nineteenth century. Across the group circa 1860 appears at 13.24 times the catalogue rate and circa 1930 at 0.29 times.
What size do these rugs come in?
Mostly small. 42 of our 72 carry the small scatter size value, 1.71 times the catalogue rate, and the 3 by 5 and 4 by 6 standard sizes run 2.44 and 1.83 times. Room size runs 0.60 times and large oversized 0.58 times, and all four of the oversized ones are Mongolian. Squares are over represented at 1.41 times, which matters because a square room size carpet is hard to find in any other type: we hold 11 of them here, at 6 by 6, 11 by 11 and up to 17 by 18 feet.
Is a Baotou rug a good investment?
We do not give investment advice and no rug should be bought as a financial instrument. What we can say from our own numbers is that this group is priced in line with comparable antiques once size and age are accounted for, so you are not paying a name premium at the Baotou end, and that the nineteenth century end of the group carries the ordinary antique age premium the whole catalogue carries, about 1.5 times, rather than a special one.
How do I check a north China rug before buying it?
Measure it yourself rather than trusting a size word: four of our own records say hallway runner on rugs that measure between 1.55 and 1.64 times as long as they are wide, which is an area rug. Ask for the date and what it rests on, because the date is the single biggest thing moving the price in this group. Look at the back for rows of knot collars, since 71 of our 72 are knotted pile and one is a flat weave. Ask about repair and about the ends and sides. And compare the price per square foot with another rug of the same measured area and the same period, not with another Baotou.
Questions about a particular rug are welcome. Everything in this guide is drawn from stock we actually hold, so if something here is sold by the time you read it, the archives above will show what has replaced it.