Page 144 - March 17 2017 Chinese Art NYC, Christies
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THREE RARE SATIN-GROUND NEEDLELOOP EMBROIDERED The needlelooping technique is when rows of detached loops are worked
SQUARES over refective paper and are attached to a backing along the edges of the
YUAN-MING DYNASTY, 13TH-14TH CENTURY design. This technique is illustrated by Milton Sonday and Lucy Maitland
in “The Asian Embroidery Technique: Detached Looping,” Orientations,
The group comprises three needleloop-embroidered panels. The frst is August 1989, p. 57. This article illustrates several diferent examples of
worked with a fowering peony on a blue satin damask ground decorated with needlelooping, including a square with a similar satin damask ground and
scrolling clouds. The second is decorated with a lotus blossom in shades of worked in the same style dating to the Yuan dynasty, p. 59, fg. 3.
blue, yellow and brown on a pale brown damask ground interspersed with
clouds and Buddhist emblems. The third is a lotus blossom borne on a leafy The history of needlelooping is discussed by James C.Y. Watt and Anne E.
stem on a pale blue ground of lotus blossoms and Buddhist emblems. Wardwell in When Silk was Gold: Central Asian and Chinese Textiles, New
York, 1997. According to Watt and Wardwell, a needleloop-embroidered kesa
9¿ x 8æ in. (23 cm. x 22.5 cm.) (3) and altar cover are in the Engaku-ji in Kamakura, Japan, and are thought
to have been brought there by the founder of the temple in 1279, which
$4,000-6,000 corresponds to the end of the Southern Song dynasty in China. For this
reason, and also because the motifs found in needleloop embroideries are
either Chinese or Buddhist, needlelooping is thought to have originated in the
Southern Song dynasty. A needleloop-embroidered square in The Cleveland
Museum of Art decorated with ocean, rocks and similarly-rendered peonies
is illustrated ibid., p. 186, no. 55.
元/明 環針繡片三件
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