The Aubusson tapestry manufacturer of the 17th and 18th centuries managed to compete with the royal manufacture of Gobelins tapestry and the privileged position of Beauvais tapestry. Tapestry manufacture at Aubusson, in the upper valley of the Creuse in central France, may have developed from looms in isolated family workshops established by Flemings that are noted in documents from the 16th century.
Typically, Aubusson tapestries depended on engravings as a design source or the full-scale cartoons from which the low-warp tapestry-weavers worked. As with Flemish and Parisian tapestries of the same time, figures were set against a conventional background of verdure, stylized foliage and vignettes of plants on which birds perch and from which issue glimpses of towers and towns.

Aubusson rugs were at first based on Persian models when a center of French carpet production began in the mid 17th century. These flat woven wool carpets were created mainly for the sophisticated wealthy European client to buy. Aubusson rugs graced the floors throughout all of Europe in the 17th and the 18th century.