Page 17 - Lydia Chen - The Complete Book of Chinese Knotting

01 Chinese Knts inA nct (09-16) rp08 5/30/08 5:58 PM Page 14

Furniture and Other Household Objects
Bronze mirrors, forged with rings on the back, were tied to walls by knotted cords
(page 14), while bronze vessels from the Warring States Period, replicas of earth-
enware jugs, were decorated with a knotted network resembling the cords used to
support their fragile antecedents. In various portraits from the Tang and Five
Dynasties periods, Chinese knots occur beneath chairs, for example, in “The Lady
with the Fan” (page 13), and in screens behind emperors’ seats. In fact, the first
pan chang knot was found in a portrait of the Ming Emperor Xiaozhong (page 6).
From the Song period, Chinese knots were used to decorate armrests. The
predilection for Chinese knots is evident in all portraits of Song royalty, for exam-
ple, Empress Zheng Zhong (page 14).

Accessories and Other Items
Umbrellas adorned with Chinese knots are abundant in the “Luo Goddess”scrolls
dated from the Eastern Jin Period. They are also seen in the stone frieze, “The
Portrait of the Empress Zheng Zhong, Song Emperor Praying to Buddha,” in the Bingyang Cave, Luoyang, Henan (page 13).
Dynasty (CE 960–1279).
Musical instruments embellished with knots can be seen in the brick frieze, “The
Seven Scholars of the Bamboo Garden,” from Hu Bridge in Danyang, Jiangsu
(page 13). During the Qing Dynasty, knots were widely used to grace objects in
daily use such as ru yi, sachets, wallets, fan tassels, spectacle cases and rosaries. All
existing basic knots, except the creeper and the constellation knots, also appeared
on ornaments from the Qing Dynasty, regarded as the heyday of Chinese knots,
where the outer loops were extended into other knots. As a decorative design on
objects, the round brocade knot was first discovered on a Tang silver pot dug up
in He Village, Xian (page 5). The tassel knot was discovered on a Tang mirror
(page 5) and the cloverleaf knot on a Song porcelain box (page 6).

Longevity mirror, Han Dynasty 206 BCE–CE 220).
Photo Courtesy of Palace Museum,Taipei.

Painted wooden figure, Eastern Zhou Sketch of the same wooden figure.
Period (770–256 BCE), from the Chu
tomb,Xinyang,Henan Province.

14 THE COMPLETE BOOK OF CHINESE KNOTTING