Antique Wagireh Sampler Rugs & Carpets

The Wagireh or Sampler rug is perhaps the most enigmatic of carpets. Made as a template or pattern for the design and production of larger carpets, they are generally small pieces the size of a scatter rug or mat. They did not show the entire design, but only the basic or fundamental portion of the various larger decorative elements of the field and borders, along with selected individual motifs, which could then be expanded according to established symmetrical repetitions to produce the complete composition. The utility and need for such patterns or guides is certainly clear. They provided an abbreviated and readily portable means of preserving and transmitting designs that could be used over and over in different variations and circulated widely. Indeed it is likely that wagirehs were jealously guarded and highly sought after by rug weaving communities or commercial entities since they provided the basic creative matrix for making a large, complex carpet that would fetch a good price in the marketplace. When and if Wagireh carpets changed hands, they probably commanded price far beyond their value as a small rug.

Still, this all begs the question as to why Wagireh rugs actually needed to be woven, i.e. why a detailed color paper sketch with indications of knot counts would not suffice, especially since carpets were often produced from such paper sketches. The answer probably lies in the completeness of the wagireh as a holographic shorthand for the finished carpet in all its aspects, not only the pattern and the knot count, but all the structural detail – the spin of the yarns, the number of wefts, the thickness of the pile, the precise color and texture of the wool, and most of all, the exact relative proportion of all the elements, in one concise package. As such the wagireh evolved as more than just a pattern; it was to all intents and purposes a shorthand rug, abbreviated and abstracted to be sure, but a rug nonetheless. That is why wagirehs so often have the visual impact or effect of a complete rug, even though their designs are off-center, ignoring the rules of symmetry that normally govern ornamental rug design. The ability of a wagireh to function autonomously as a real rug increases considerably, moreover, if its design elements are in fact pictorial or can at least be perceived as such, since its impact would be less subject to the rules of symmetry that govern abstract ornament.