Page 126 - Sotheby's Fine Chinese Art NYC September 2023

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A LARGE KESI ‘IMMORTALS’ PANEL 清十八 / 十九世紀 緙絲仙宮壽筵圖
QING DYNASTY, 18TH / 19TH CENTURY
framed 來源
Height 71 in., 180.5 cm; Length 36 in., 92.5 cm 倫敦佳士得1999年6月15日，編號198
PROVENANCE
Christie’s London, 15th June 1999, lot 198.
Kesi weaving was widespread throughout the Qing dynasty,
particularly during the Qianlong Emperor’s reign. The
textiles produced through kesi weaving were utilized as
clothing, fans, screens, and scrolls. This particular kesi scroll
depicts a group of immortals offering birthday felicitations
to the Queen Mother of the West (Xiwangmu), symbolizing
an auspicious blessing. Pieces like this could have been
commissioned as birthday gifts for esteemed senior
members of prominent families.
Compare two kesi scrolls with almost identical design,
one from the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Huang
Nengfu, Chūgoku kinuorimono zenshi. Nanasennen no bi to
waza [Complete history of Chinese textiles. Skill of seven
thousand years], Tokyo, 2015, pl. 9-122; the other from the
Liaoning Provincial Museum, illustrated in Jinxiu luoyi qiao
tianxia / Heavens’ Embroidered Cloths. One Thousand Years
of Chinese Textiles, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong,
1995, cat. no. 119. Compare also a related example in the
Nanjing Museum and with slightly different arrangements,
illustrated in Huang Nengfu, op. cit., pl. 9-118.
$ 40,000-60,000

248 SOTHEBY’S COMPLETE CATALOGUING AVAILABLE AT SOTHEBYS.COM/N11275 AN IMPORTANT PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHINESE TEXTILES 249