This famous rug, familiarly called the "Guhar carpet" after the name of the weaver, is an extremely important historical document with a colorful history. Guhar (Gohar) is an Armenian female name, meaning gem or jewel. The rug was noticed first when it appeared in 1899 in London where it was photographed at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and it was subsequently published by F.R. Martin in 1908. Afterwards, however, it dropped from sight and did not resurface until 1977, when it was sold at auction in London by LeFevre and Partners. The Kohar rug is not in the British Museum, as stated by some rug authorities.
The rug is in the Karabagh style and related to the dragon rug designs of Kuba. The inscription at the top of the rug is an earnest request and expresses the religious personality of its weaver: "I, Gohar, full of sin and weak of soul, with my newly learned hands wove this rug. Whoever reads this, may say a word of mercy to God for me, dating 1149"
During the time when the carpet's whereabouts were unknown, it continued to elicit comment from historians of the art, particularly since the inscription seemed to provide an early date. The date is not so straightforward as one would hope, however, as it comes in the form of a chronogram, in which four letters-representing successively millennium, century, decade, and year-are separated by dots. The translation suggested a date of 1129 according to the Armenian calendar which began in 551; this is 1679-80 A.D. by the modern Christian calendar. The date has also been read as 1149, or 1699-1700 A.D., while others have suggested that the date refers to the Islamic calendar, which began in 621 A.D. and thus should be 1732. Although there have been suggestions that the date was altered, the rug shows no evidence of tampering. Others have suggested that the inscription was copied from an earlier rug. As with many carpets of disputed date, one must look to the carpet itself for clues.
The design of the Gohar Carpet with large elaborate palmettes and medallions relates it to the Kasim Ushag tradition, which, in turn, places it in the context of an extensive series of Caucasian rugs with similar designs that probably began to be made in the seventeenth century and extended into the early nineteenth century. The large palmette designs at each end of the vertical axis are characteristic of these rugs, as are the yellow-field bands at their sides. The central medallion, the four smaller palmettes in the field at the sides, and the border on the Gohar are all consistent with design elements found in rugs of the seventeenth or eighteenth century. The same border appears on a Dragon rug in the collection of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. The colors, however, are not typical of the earlier rugs. There is here a surprisingly small amount of strong dark blue and an unexpectedly heavy use of green and yellow. The colors, moreover, do not resemble the palette of the nineteenth-century descendants of the earlier rugs.
Thus, although the rug does not seem to be a mainstream type, there is no convincing evidence that it is not as old as the date suggests. Certainly there is no question of its success as a work of art. In balance of design, color, texture and composition, the Gohar must be ranked as an extremely successful and appealing carpet. The Armenian provenance-which can hardly be questioned given the inscription -would seem to help relate a much larger group of rugs to the Armenian weaving tradition.
Source:
Lucy Der Maneulyan, Murray L.Eiland, Weavers, Merchants and Kings, The Inscribed Armenian Rugs, Kimbell Art Museum.
H.M.Raphaelian, Rugs of Armenia, Their History and Art
F.R. Martin. HistoryofOriental Carpets before 1800. Vienna, 1908.