Page 355 - Chinese Art, Vol II By Stephen W. Bushell

TEXTILES, WOVEN SILKS, ETC. 103

short stitches, and gold threads stitched down in parts couched
flatly. The rectangular panels, intended probably for a screen,
have each a lady with a fan in tlie foreground and a young girl
holding flowers, a bit of railing and sprigs of flowers on the ground
and flowering trees rising from a sketchy rockery behind, the
intervals being filled in with birds and butterflies, dragon flies, and
other insects. It has the air of an early eighteenth century com-
position.
Tapestry is a sort of link between weaving and embroidery.
Though wrought in a loom, like true weaving, and upon a warp
stretched out along its frame, it has no woof thrown across those
threads with a shuttle or any like appliance, but its weft is done
with many short threads, all variously coloured and put in by
a needle, or knotted with the fingers. It is not embroidery, though
so very like it, for tapestry is not worked upon what is really a
web, having both warp and woof, but upon a series of closely set
fine strings. Carpets are closely akin to tapestry, though the use
of them may perhaps not be so ancient. The earliest notices we
have of tapestry come from Egypt and Babylonia, and the Chinese,
like Europeans, seem to have adopted the art of tapestry-making
from western Asia. The workmen in northern China in the present
day are usually Mohammedans and the patterns they affect often
betray non-Chinese influences They use a high upright loom,
at which several men work together, knotting into the warp, tuft
after tuft, the materials of the pattern, whether it be of silk or
wool. The pattern develops at the back of the loom, where the
foreman stands to suggest any alterations that may be required
during the progress of the work. The fringes which are left at
the top and bottom of the finished piece are really the fag ends
of the warp.
For large carpets to cover the floor the Chinese use felted materials
such as camel-hair, which are dyed with ornamental borders in
black and red, or occasionally inlaid by stamping with coloured
S'J41. 2 T! 2