Christopher Legge has spent more than 50 years earning his place among the UK’s most trusted names in the carpet trade. He opened his first small shop in Witney in 1974, and went on to establish Legge Carpets in Oxford’s Summertown, where the business is renowned for its specialism in tribal weavings from Iran and Turkmenistan, alongside contemporary carpets by designers including Jan Kath. His remarkable journey was celebrated last year with a major exhibition, ‘50 Years, Along the Way’, staged at the gallery in October 2024 and covered in HALI 224.
Throughout his career, he has travelled extensively to the source material; to Turkey through the 1980s and Iran ever since, when the political situation allowed. These trips were never just commercial, and although he was buying to sell, he was buying to learn, with many pieces kept in the basement of the shop for further examination and research. Now, many pieces in this private collection, amassed over five decades, are filtering out of the collection in the form of a sale at Mallam’s in Oxford. He hopes they will find new homes where they are equally valued and understood.
What follows are eight of our picks from Part 1 of The Oxford Library Sale, 9th September at 10am GMT.
