Page 78 - Christies May 9, 2017 Kensington

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE AMERICAN COLLECTION illustrated by C. Brown in Weaving China’s Past, The Phoenix Art Museum,
Seattle, 2000, pp. 88-91, no. 14. Brown suggests that these kesi panels were
*75 likely made for New Year’s celebrations because of the association of fnger
citron, plum blossoms, orchid and osmanthus with New Year motifs. As
A LARGE KESI GOLD-GROUND PANEL these motifs are also on the present panel, it may also have been made for
QING DYNASTY (1644-1911) the celebration of the New Year.

The large panel is fnely woven with archaistic vases, jardinières and censers A related kesi hanging scroll, dated to the Qianlong period and, similarly
containing fowers, lingzhi, and fnger citron, and with beribboned auspicious decorated with shaped panels of ‘antiques’ and fowers, is in the National
objects, surrounded by a peach-ground border woven with chilong amidst Palace Museum collection and is illustrated in Catalogue of the Special
leafy branches. Exhibition of Kesi Textiles (kesi tezhan tulu), National Palace Museum, Taiwan,
105¿ x 71 in. (266.9 x 180.3 cm.) 1989, no. 31. ‘Antiques’ similar to those on the present carpet are often
included on the borders of Chinese coromandel screens. An example of a
£20,000-30,000 $26,000-38,000 screen with a border decorated with similar ‘antiques’ formerly in the Doris
€24,000-35,000 Duke Charitable Foundation, was sold at Christie’s New York, 17-18 March
2016, lot 1328.
The use of ‘antiques’ as decoration in Chinese art was a popular theme in the
Qing dynasty, especially in the Kangxi period due to the Kangxi Emperor’s 清 緙絲博古花卉紋掛屏
interest in archaism. Three small kesi panels with similar groupings of 來源：美國私人珍藏
‘antiques’ and fowers in the Amy S. Clague Collection of Chinese Textiles are

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