Dealer Discovers Rug Owned by FDR
New York, NY, Jan. 16, 2015 -- John Ahdoot of Ahdoot Oriental Rugs recently discovered a rug in a New Jersey couple’s home that once belonged to Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
The rug, which Ahdoot valued between $20,000 and $30,000, was once prominently displayed by Roosevelt during his tenure in the White House.
According to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York, the former president spent his entire life amassing collections of stamps, ship models, rare books, printings, coins, and drawings during his childhood that expanded to include Chinese carvings, Scandinavian glassware, and Oriental rugs during his presidency.
Pieces from his rug collection, which was so vast that much of it is still unaccounted for today, inevitably turn up in private collections, or are discovered by an appraiser in an unlikely place. Chief amongst those discoveries is that made by John Ahdoot.
“I was called to a New Jersey apartment for what seemed to be a standard rug appraisal job,” said John Ahdoot. “What I found was a 12 foot x 19 foot Oriental rug in an Islamic pattern featuring a large, distinct mosque. I wasn’t very impressed with it at first, and initially appraised it at $2,000 to $3,000.”
After leaving the couple’s apartment, Ahdoot reports, he came across a newspaper kiosk displaying a magazine that featured a photograph of the very same rug he had just appraised in a story on Franklin D. Roosevelt.