Page 40 - Chiense TExtiles, MET MUSEUM Pub 1934

THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
silk thread was subsequently evolved by the Chinese and
the resulting gold thread is more practical for weaving
large patterns and for embroidering than the flat gold
strips, but both are still used lavish\ y.
Several small pieces of brocade in the collection are
unquestionably Ming, but since we have not yet had an
opportunity to study them thoroughly we prefer not to
/1
publish them here.
A number of eighteenth-century brocade court robes 7
make a colorful group with their rich gold designs
against clear colors of every shade. The gold here is of
both kinds mentioned above, the flat-paper variety be-
ing used only for the faint outlining of colors and the
thread gold for the large dragon motives. One very rich
court robe in the Paul Bequest has the entire design of
dragons, bats, fretwork, clouds, and waves in thread
gold woven on a brown satin ground.
One of the earliest pieces of k' o ssu in the Museum
collection (except for pictorial examples mounted as
kakemono, which we have not included in this study
because of their closer relation to paintings) is the small
8
panel shown in figure 1. This piece has the firm ribbed
7 Notably those in the collection of Dr. John W. Hammond,
now on loan in the Museum.
8 This is a substitution for the piece illustrated in the first edi-
tion, which we have decided is probably Japanese, although it
was originally catalogued by Kihei Hattori, the noted Japanese
authority on textiles from whose collection it came, as "probably
Chinese."