Home - Talisman Oriental Rug Cleaning for the greater San Francisco Bay Area

About Talisman Oriental Rug Cleaning

Talisman was created in 1980 to provide museum quality cleaning and restoration services for Oriental carpets and area rugs. Although Talisman has always been based in the San Francisco Bay Area, our name is well known to major collectors, auction houses, and museums throughout the United States and abroad. The primary reason for our success is that, in seeking ideal approaches for cleaning area rugs, Talisman has broken entirely with the superficial and potentially harmful practices of wall-to-wall carpet cleaning and machine washing – choosing instead to found its methods on the principles of museum conservation science. Today Talisman’s expertise extends beyond rare and important rugs to area rugs of all types, periods and use – including the most contemporary designs and materials for area rugs. Experience gained in cleaning and restoring antique rugs is applied to all types of area rugs - while prices remain low and competitive. Even the simplest of throw rugs must be cleaned with care and attention.

Talisman’s focus is primarily on area rugs belonging to homeowners in the private sector, however our services are also available to public institutions. The large collection of Oriental rugs in the art collection of the Banc of America world headquarters were under Talisman’s care for many years, until the offices moved out of state. Montgomery Securities’ noted collection of antique rugs - covering three floors of the TransAmerica Building were cleaned and conserved by Talisman for nearly two decades, until the company’s eventual restructuring. Talisman cleaned for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco several early Turkmen rugs in the Wiedersperg Collection – these services are acknowledged in the Museum’s publication “Between the Black Desert and the Red: Turkmen Carpets from the Wiedersperg Collection.” A large tent hanging from Mali was cleaned for the opening of the new redesigned and reconstructed De Young Museum – and is currently exhibited at the entrance to the textile rooms. A group of 18th Century Chinese carpets has been cleaned for the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. The Getty Museum deaccessioned its Oriental rug collection in 1990, but the museum has contracted with Talisman to clean and prepare for display two panels of a rare Shah Sevan Kilim. Talisman has also provided services to "house museums" administered by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Washington, D.C. Museums on the East Coast, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, refer clients to Talisman. Our work on the textiles in Lloyd Cotsen's Neutrogena Collection are now primarily displayed in their own wing of Santa Fe's Folk Art Museum. Talisman’s work has been acknowledged in the recent book "Five Centuries of Indonesian Textiles" (the author is a former curator of textiles at the L.A. County Museum of Art). In 2005, Talisman completed the extensive conservation of a large group of 13th C. Yuan dynasty silk court robes – including an exceptionally rare Guguguan crown. Subsequently, members of our staff attended the exhibition of these textiles at the National Silk Museum, Hangzhou, China.

We are also honored to receive referrals from the heads of the Oriental carpet departments of Sotheby's and Christie's auction houses - and from dealers throughout the United States who specialize in Oriental rugs, area rugs and tapestries. Please free to contact any such resource for references.

HALI, published in London - the respected journal for collectors and scholars of Oriental carpets - has written that Talisman provides “the finest quality conservation services outside the museum environment.”

For further information on any aspect of rug cleaning or repair - including, not only antique rugs, but also modern area rugs - please contact me personally.

Yours,

David Walker, President