Page 42 - Chiense TExtiles, MET MUSEUM Pub 1934

THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
texture and the bold sweeping design which are typi-
cal of Ming k'o ssu. Our dating of Ming k'o ssu has,
strangely enough, to be based on examples of Japanese
tapestry (tsuzure) of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen-
turies, the provenance of which is established beyond
question, for China, always as magnificently careless
about preserving her art as she was lavish in creating it,
has left us with even less documentation from the Ming
dynasty than from earlier periods. Luckily in this in-
stance we know that the Japanese learned tapestry-mak-
ing from the Chinese some time during the Ming dy-
nasty, and i is therefore obvious that their earliest en-
deavors in this craft would closely resemble the Chinese
models. The similarity is so marked, in fact, that in
some cases it is. almost impossible to tell which is Chi-
nese and which Japanese. The ch'i lin, or Chinese uni-
corn, depicted on the fragment shown here is unmistak-
ably Chinese and is certainly a contemporary of the em-
broidered animals on the Ming hangings from the Have-
meyer Collection.
Eighteenth-century k' o ssu is well represented in the
collection. Two imperial court robes, one (fig. 20) from
the Paul Bequest, one (fig. 2r) acquired after the first
edition of this book was issued, are the most extraordi-
nary examples of k' o ssu it has been our privilege to see.
They are of very fine silk, and so compact is the weave
that one can scar eel y see the joining threads between
ground and design. We are firmly convinced not only
that they were made for the same emperor but that they

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