Richard Larkin

Editor Note:

This thread had become unwieldy, so I split off the discussion of types of guls. However, the first post in a thread can't be removed without deleting the thread, so I simply edited the opening post. This post is the result

Steve Price

Joel Greifinger

Hi Folks,

What do you want in an Ersari main carpet gul? For background color, do you cherish chestnut, find brick too brash or just like liver? What other criteria weigh heavily in whether these examples (taken from the salon threads and elsewhere) elicit lust or leave you flat?

1:


2:


3:


4:


5:


6:

Fill in the blanks: "I'd like to go home with the carpet behind door number ____ because_____________ ____________________ .

Joel Greifinger
P.S. Second, third and least favorite choices also encouraged.

Rich Larkin

Hi Joel,

So the saying goes, and I'm not ranking your selections. However, I'll say the oldest, most "authentic" one to my mind, is #5.

And, of course, I'm already at home with #4.

Rich Larkin

Joel Greifinger

Hi Rich,

To sow increased invidiousness, I'll throw in three more
7:



8:


9:


Joel Greifinger

And, as a wise man once said (emphasis added)

Paul Smith

Joel--

No fair, throwing #8 in there, since brother Rich didn't have a chance to go for that one (which I suspect he would have). I am struck by one interesting feature of #1, however...it is the only gul in this collection in which the center elements are quartered, which I take to be an old design feature. I still want to take #8 home though.

Paul

Joel Greifinger

Hi Paul,

I was in the midst of posting guls 7-9 when Rich's brief missive popped in. While I stand by the old saw, "All's fair in rugs and invidiousness", he should feel free to alter or amend his non-ranking.

Rich - Since you've narrowed the criteria to age and authenticity, could you elaborate a bit on what you mean by "authentic". Do you mean trueness to something original or essential? Or is oldest synonomous with most authentic?

Joel Greifinger

Paul Smith

Joel--

On surveying your examples again, I wondered whether several of those rugs were indeed from north of Afghanistan. I find myself wanting to put the more elaborate gulli-guls there. In this sense, I realize that I am ascribing a certain amount of design simplification to the move south, and I am intrigued by that, since it runs counter to the common phenomenon of marginal survival, where groups moving away from their home tend to preserve traditions better than those who stayed; so, Japan preserves Chinese music lost in China and Elizabethan English survives in the Appalachians. It seems to be a more complex process with rug weaving.

Paul

Rich Larkin

Hi all,

No. 8 is a hummer, no question about it; but the thing that really has me up in the air is that it (#8) seems to have offset knotting. If so, I've never seen it elsewhere on a rug like this.

Rich Larkin

Steve Price

Hi All

Among collectors of various other forms of tribal art, "authentic" usually means "made for and used within the tribal community of the person who made it." In African art, especially, fakes (therefore, non-authentic items) are rampant. I'm not sure whether the term means anything more than "made by some member of the group that traditionally makes such things" in Rugdom.

Regards

Steve Price

Rich Larkin

Steve, Joel, somebody,

Paul Smith thinks the apparent appearance of offset knotting on gul #8 could be an illusion resulting from image compression. What think you?

Rich Larkin

Rich Larkin

Hi Joel,

Though I'm ready to jump on any bandwagon that's promoting the concept that "most rugs are commercial," I do believe that the Turkoman tribes wove functional items in specific sizes that figured into their social and cultural customs. These included so-called "main carpets." I was surmising that gul #5 was from an "authentic" main carpet. On the other hand, I would guess gul #4 is on a nice old commercial Afghan rug.

Rich Larkin

Paul Smith

Rich, et al--

What made me think of file compression being the culprit was that I saw the same effect to a lesser degree in #9 (look in the red background). I could imagine one freak Ersari rug with offset knotting, but not two, back-to-back. I have just about given up on the file compression software that came with my camera and open images up in Photoshop to reduce their size when the results come out weird--and rugs seem to freak out my software on a regular basis.

But, back to the guls...are these rugs all from Afghanistan? How does one distinguish between "Middle Amu Darya" and "Afghan"?

Paul

Steve Price

Hi Paul

Gul #8 sure looks like either JPG compression or scanning a printed page took a toll. If you're using Photoshop, here's the sequence that works for me.
1. Open the image file.
2. Under the Image menu, select Image Size
3. Set new size
4. Under the File menu, select Save for Web
5. Set to about 70% compression, then save
6. If it asks whether you want to replace the file of that name, select Yes

That should do it.

Regards

Steve

Joel Greifinger

Hi Rich,
Are you putting #4 (you rug) into the "nice old commercial Afghan" category based mainly on its size? Or, are there any other factors (design, color, structure, handle, etc.) that lead you in that direction?

If any of these other rugs are of sizes more typical for Turkmen functional items, would you assume them to be authentic?

I don't mean to just be annoying, peppering you with questions this way. In my fairly recent enthusiasm about rugs, I haven't at all focused my interest on Turkmen weavings and so know even less about them than other groups. Since the distinguishing markers that might differentiate "authentic" from "commercial" in this group are not evident to me, I'm hoping that those who have pondered such questions at much greater length can give some guidance.

Joel Greifinger

James Blanchard

Hi Paul,

I am also interested in your question as to whether these rugs all fit into the same category. I can see at least three options...

1) They represent a chronological continuum beginning in the MAD region, with the later group coming from N. Afghanistan with attendant design changes / degeneration. If this is the case, perhaps we are "under dating" the MAD versions, since there does seem to be plausible arguments (including the provenance of Rich's carpet) that place some of the "Afghan" carpets into the 19th century. One would think that it would have taken some time for the designs to change that much, particularly to evolve into such a consistent design grouping.

2) They represent somewhat parallel design groups, perhaps sharing a common root. The MAD could still be older, but in another design branch.

3) They are completely unrelated, in which case it would be interesting to try to speculate on the origin of the Afghanistan carpet groups.

James

Rich Larkin

Hi Joel,

To start with, I'm the guy who thought the Ersari at #8 used offset knotting, until a genuine guru, P. Smith, set me straight. (See below.) So take all these comments with a full namakdan.

With no particular admissible evidence to rely on, except the opinions and findings of the odd paper here and there, I assume that predominantly Turkoman weavers, or others under their weaving influence, became settled in Northern Afghanistan at just about the time of the upsurge in the market for oriental rugs in the west. (See Werner Loges comments, coming up.) I think I see a sort of division line between typically tribal Turkoman rugs, including Ersaris, and more homogenized Afghan rugs. Some of the homogenization consists of somewhat larger sizes in the quasi-main carpets. Also in play is an emphasis on certain border designs and field layouts, to the relative exclusion of others. (Again, see images coming up.) I have always assumed that the choice of gul in an Afghan carpet, whether temirdshin, or gulli gul, etc., was arbitrary, much more so than it would have been if woven fifty or one hundred years earlier. The endeavor at hand was to weave a commercial model, "...and we can offer this in the X gul, or the Y gul." Know what I mean? I think it was a bit of a gradual process, but that's where it seems to have gone.

As far as my #4 is concerned, I don't know what to say about its exact fit into this hypothesis. Loges says that in general, the lighter the rug in the continuum of Afghan type Ersaris, the older it is. He also uses the color of the madder in the older Ersari rugs to assign place: the lighter, redder ones in Afghanistan, and the more purplish ones farther north into Turkestan. I do think my rug is relatively old within the type of Afghan I am talking about.

Regarding the offset knotting (above): On closer inspection, I see that the lines of the "offset knotting" don't follow the diagonal lines of the gul. That can't happen. As Lily Tomlin used to say, "Nevermind."

Rich Larkin

Rich Larkin

Hi all,

Werner Loges in Turkoman Tribal Rugs (1980, provides the following images, the first (or left hand) which I see as smack within the Afghan rug weaving tradition. He dates it to the second half of the nineteenth century.



Regarding the first, he provides the following.

This view provides a frame of reference for the apparent relationship between traditional Ersari weaving and later Afghan weaving. In addition, he comments that the border shown here is a very common one in Afghan rugs of this type. I note that the one I posted in the other thread here (gul #4) also employs a version of this border.

Regarding the second image above, he says that it is the traditional form of the gul, particular to the Ersari tribe; but that the rest of the rug features Tekke, Saryk and Salor ornament. He places it before 1800.

The following from Loges is also a "later," Afghan take on the traditional rug. He dates it, ca. 1900. It includes a non-traditional usage that Loges comments on, and that I see as typical of the modification on tradition that became the norm in Afghan production.



Of course, the feature is the use of the "badam" ("tshudur" in Loges) line to divide the field into quadrants. Incidentally, I tend to see the use of the ubiquitous "badam"border in Afghan work to be a "latish" marker, though Azadi illustrates a one meter square Ersari rug with (guls and) the badam border to 1800.

More to follow. Other duties call.

Rich Larkin

Frederik May

Hi all,

in my eyes what Rich wrote is basically the essence of what I have read about the differences between Afghan and Ersari or in other words very old and older Ersaris.
I must say that to me it is important to assert that there are rugs wich display the classic characteristics of Ersari rugs determinjed by some people somewhere, somewhen: many natural colors (white!), one of the two classic guls, classic border designs...And there are rugs which show possible variations.
There are more or less classic configurations


And mannerism…which can be pleasant as well




If one really wants to distinguish between afghan and Turkmen in my opinion one should maybe focus on the Kelim ends as well. What do you think?

Best Regards,

Frederik

Joel Greifinger

Hi Frederik, Rich and all,

When you refer to the "two classic guls" do you mean the gulli gul in all of its many forms and the temerjin gul (as in examples #6 and #9)? Where do you think the "taghan gul" (as in #2 and Loges' "later" Afghan example in post #17) fits into the scheme?

The location of the trefoils in gulli guls #3 and #4 are different than examples that are dated earlier. Do you see this as evidence of later and perhaps commercially oriented production?

Joel Greifinger

Frederik May

Hi Joel,

I think that this is a very good question. Has anyone ever seen a "taghan gul" with all or most of the "classic" characteristics? I do think that even the "termijin gul" does not come in a classic configuration very often. Especially the colors are often limited or not as pure. I must say that most of the carpets classified as younger Ersaris which I have seen seem to have a palette which does look more pastel colored. I am only talking about personal observations. There is no real evidence but I would love to hear your opinions about it.

Best Regards,

Frederik

Rich Larkin

Hi all,

There is a useful discussion of Ersari/Beshir rugs as they bear on Afghan rug weaving in my latest version of Murray Eiland’s Oriental Rugs, a New Comprehensive Guide (1981). (That edition has since been supplanted by one authored by the Eilands, father and son.) His general point at the time was that the whole matrix of that weaving includes inter-relationships not well understood, pertaining to traditional, alleged Ersari rugs; the so-called Beshir rugs; and apparently later production from Northern Afghanistan; and further, that the plethora of names and places associated with such weaving doesn’t clarify the picture very much. One interesting note he made was that after having interviewed hundreds of persons from the region, he had never met anyone who purported to be Ersari; and that he had spoken with very few who were even conversant with the term. Apparently, for the people of the region, the nomenclature for either tribal affinity or weaving provenance is quite different from that familiar in rugdom. That sort of thing never ceases to amaze me. The usefulness of the discussion in Eiland in my estimation is that it tends to provide moral support to the ruggie who can’t make any sense of the popular theories about the organization of rug production in this area over the last couple of centuries or so.

Be that as it may, Dr. Eiland provided a good illustration of the apparent evolution over time of one of the guls traditionally associated with the Ersari, whoever they were.



He states that the two rugs in the illustration are so similar to one another in materials and structure as to seem to have been woven within the same small group, possibly the same family, though probably a few weaving generations apart. In that regard, he points to several features of the later (upper illustration) rug that represent modifications and simplifications of the earlier design. They are evident from the illustrations, and I need not go into detail. However, I think the exercise makes very well the point that we have perceived in our own experiences on a wider basis, viz., that the guls and similar designs evolved over time in the region in a way that they seem to have lost their original tribal significance, to surface in slightly altered form in a variety of weavings.

Ruch Larkin

Joel Greifinger

Hi all,

I asked earlier about the significance of the different arrangement of trefoils in guls #3 and #4. Following up on Rich's reference to Eiland, I checked what the latest edition (4th, 1998) has to say. Versions of the gulli gul akin to #5, #7 and #8 are described as most common and as occurring on more early pieces than any of the other types of Ersari guls. The type of gul in #3 and #4 is also common and is "associated with the Dali subtribe." The "taghan gul" (as in #2 and from Loges in post #17) "is often called the Daulatabad gul, although it is also used elsewhere."

In terms of the earlier discussion of color, the Eilands' write "Some late Ersari pieces are more brownish, and in many pieces of around 1900 the red appears to have become more pinkish with time. Several types often show substantial use of a vivid yellow, while some old pieces include a rich apricot color, particularly within the guls for contrast with the red field. White is more prominent on older pieces, while there is the usual range of blues and blue-greens."

Joel Greifinger

Dinie Gootjes

Hi All,

We have now seen several forms of the Ersari gul, with the later ones appearing more simplified and stiff than the earlier examples. Just today I stumbled upon a few early Ersari carpets on Spongobongo. They are all dated to the first half of the 19th c. at the earliest. It struck me how much more freely the carpets are drawn when compared to the ones in the exhibition or the other complete rugs in the discussion, with amulet like motifs, different forms of the secondary guls and different forms of the main gul, especially when you look at the centres in the first one.





These are not Afghan rugs, but from the Amu Darya region. Still, they help illustrate the point made before that there is a movement from freedom to formalization and simplification.

Dinie

Joel Greifinger

Hi Dinie,

While the stylistic differences you point out can surely be characterized as moving from "freedom to formalization", I'm not as sure that the process can be comfortably correlated with a time-line, except at the ends. Some of the published Ersari main carpets that are attributed to the early nineteenth century are less freely drawn than your examples. See for example plates 57 and 58 in Pinner and Eiland's Between the Black Desert and the Red. On the other hand, a fair number of published carpets attributed to the later nineteenth century seem to display greater freedom. Here's a rug attributed by Sakhai to the second half of the nineteenth century that, at least for me, has the aesthetic characteristics that you describe:



Assuming that the age attributions are based on criteria independent of the stylistic variations, it appears that the simplification and formalization was a process of 'combined and uneven development'. Once the norms we associate with the twentieth century became established, the shift seems to have become consolidated.

Joel Greifinger

Rich Larkin

Hi all,

Sorry to be getting these images out on the late side. Meanwhile, the discussion may be passing them by, but TurkoTek is a forgiving site.

The left hand of the following images is from Loges, and he says that it is Saryk, not Ersari. He makes the additional point that the Saryk were related to the Ersari of Afghanistan. I'm not sure what to make of that, except it supports the proposition that the distribution of these weaving designs and styles in the region of Northern Afghanistan/Southern Turkmenistan is a complicated business. The image on the right is from Tsareva, Rugs and Carpets from Central Asia, The Russian Collections (1984). She calls it Ersari, placing it in the mid-nineteenth century and adding the comment that no near analogies to it had been found. The two pieces together demonstrate how different the statement made by the "same" gul can be.



The following pair are called by Schurmann (left), "Beshir," and by Tsareva (right), "Ersari," again emphasizing the identity crisis inherent in this group. Eiland illustrates one of them and comments that "...it seems doubtful the lozenge figures have any significance as guls." Perhaps not, but the use of opposing colors in the quartered sections must have some relationship to the same practice in the drawing of many guls.



The following example, from Bausback, 1975, carries the "opposing quarter" concept (as adapted in this type of Ersari/Beshir) even farther. Rugs of this general type, and the two preceding, can be seen in late nineteenth and early twentieth century photos of the region, as mentioned by James Blanchard. Incidentally, the way the field here is divided into roughly square blocks is suggestive of the same technique shown in an Afgahn rug from Loges I posted on February 7. There, the dividing lines employed the badam border line. Perhaps the similarity is a coincidence.



This example, also from Bausback, is included just to remind us that it isn't necessarily always about guls.



Finally, one more from Bausback. I include it to exemplify the highly regular, not to say boring quality of the later-but-not-too-late Afghan Ersaris.



Perhaps it's a little more bracing in person.

Rich Larkin

Joel Greifinger

Hi all,

Here's another illustration of the difficulties in attempting to correlate stylistic regularity with the 'early/late' distinction.

The first, plate 58 from Pinner and Eiland, is described as an "early Ersari rug":



This second example from Jourdan is from the "end of the 19th century":



Describing this rug, Jourdan cites its "vitality of color and unconventional playfulness of design" He continues that "According to Thompson, such colorful rugs were made by the Ersari in the late 19th century after they had fled from Turkestan to north Afghanistan, where they lived as semi-nomads."

Joel Greifinger

Richard Larkin

Hi Joel,

Good point as to the last two. Of course, we can't place too much reliance on the supposed difference in age between the two, being mindful nevertheless of the august credentials of the speakers.

A small point I neglected to make regarding the right hand Beshir (or Ersari) in the second pair of images in my last post is that the bottom part of it shows a supposedly ikat-derived design, more often (I would think) found in juvals. Within this ambalence around the application of the terms, "Beshir" and "Ersari," I think the juvals with this design tend to be labeled "Ersari" rather regularly, though the large rug illustrated by Tsareva is more often called "Beshir" in my experience (notwithstanding her choice in the matter).

Rich Larkin

Dinie Gootjes

Hi Joel,

Thanks, good point. I obviously have too few books on Turkmen rugs to make such a statement. And too few Turkmen rugs
That second one is wild. Memories of gabbeh in the centres, rain of stars in the field. I would like to see that one in the wool.

Dinie

Joel Greifinger

Joel Greifinger