Page 103 - Christies Fine Chinese Works of Art March 2016 New York

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE PENNSYLVANIA
COLLECTION

1387

A SILK AND METALLIC THREAD ‘NINE
DRAGON’ CARPET
LATE 19TH CENTURY

The central feld is woven with a central,
front-facing fve-clawed dragon confronting
a faming pearl, surrounded by eight further
side-facing dragons chasing further pearls
amidst multi-colored clouds, all on a metallic
ground and surrounded by a lishui border.
A fve-character mark, Zhongzhengdian
beiyong, is at one end.

99Ω in. (252.7 cm.) x 60 in. (152.4 cm.)

$12,000-18,000

PROVENANCE

Beshar’s, New York, 1979.

Contemporary Western scholarship has
traditionally placed these silk and metallic thread
carpets as late 19th or early 20th century, based
on the dyes and weave. Most carpets woven
during the late 19th century are copies of earlier
carpets, yet there are no known examples of
Chinese silk carpets with similar designs, let
alone examples with metallic thread, from the
17th century or earlier. One wonders if they did
exist and are now either destroyed or not yet
discovered.

The inscription on the present carpet suggests
that it was a subsidiary carpet for the use of
Zhongzhengdian (The Hall of Rectitude) complex
inside the Forbidden City. The complex used
to hold Tibetan Buddhist shrines and was
considered as the “nucleus of Tibetan Buddhist
activities at court” at the time.
清十九世紀末 盤銀金屬絲九龍紋毯

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