Designs native and borrowed in Chinese rugs do not apparently belong to families, tribes or localities as they do in other parts of the Orient.
The patriarchal nature of the native religions forced the use of certain objects in all parts of the Empire, which were made in stereotyped fashion and which bore accepted designs. It would appear that weavers copied the designs that had been thought out by craftsmen in the decoration of other objects long ago.
These objects were presumably of bronze and to the sacrificial bronzes of early Chinese dynasties we may legitimately look for many of the designs which inspired both potters and weavers. However dissimilar may be the designs that cover the field in Chinese rugs, the border designs bear close resemblance to each other.
In them, frets and formal arrangements of Chinese motifs antedate the foliate scroll ornament of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
