Entertainment

YOU CAN’T SWEEP THIS EXHIBIT UNDER THE CARPET

YOU wouldn’t call them rug rats, exactly, but the members of New York’s Hajji Baba Club are crazy about carpets. Not the wall-to-wall variety – but the intricately woven, one-of-a-kind affairs like those now on display at the New-York Historical Society.

“Woven Splendor From Timbuktu to Tibet: Exotic Rugs and Textiles from New York Collectors” – on loan from that 75-year-old club – looks like ABC Carpet on a really good day, minus the price tags and the chance to reach out and caress the kilim.

In fact, you’ll want to touch all the merchandise. Dazzlingly colorful, meticulously wrought and historically intriguing (who knew the Tibetans’ love of tiger skins nearly extinguished a species?), they comprise prayer rugs and purses, saddle blankets and bridal hajibs, complete with a thin swath of mesh the bride can peek through.

There’s even a pair of woven felt boots, which seemed to anticipate, by a century, the advent of Uggs.

An accompanying exhibit, “Allure of the East,” sets the stage for the rug collectors’ passion for Persia, when tales like O. Henry’s “Baghdad on the Subway” inspired rich men to pose like pashas and take steamship cruises to what was called “The Orient,” meaning anywhere from Turkey to Egypt.

Those who stayed in New York consoled themselves by puffing “Turkish” cigarettes, some of which were packaged with miniature oriental rugs – the size of the ruglike coasters and mouse pads on sale at the museum’s gift shop.

“Woven Splendor” runs through Aug. 17 at the New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, at 79th Street; (212) 873-3400.