Page 356 - Chinese Art, Vol II By Stephen W. Bushell

104 CHINESE ART.

wools. The tapestry work, of smaller size, is intended to cover
the raised platform or dais at the upper end of the room, the k'ang
of the Chinese, which is spread with cushions in the day, laid with
bedding at night. At Buddhist temples one sees squares of carpet
spread for worshippers to kneel upon, woven with appropriate
designs. Some of the best tapestry work has been noticed on
saddle-cloths and on trappings used for horses in processions, which
are often of elaborate design and careful finish.
The silk carpets are very like those of Persia, India and Turkey
in the quality of the material, only differing in the details of the'
scheme of decoration. The carpet reproduced in Fig. 123 is a
silk pile of many colours, with a formally arranged floral and geo-
metrical pattern, the centre ground blue surrounded by an orange-
red border. It was sent from Manchuria to the International
Inventions E.xhibition in 1885 and was bought for 65L
The woollen rug illustrated in Fig. 124, which came from Yarkand,
in Chinese Turkestan, is fashioned in much the same style as the
silk carpet which has just been noticed, with a formal combination
of floral and geometrical designs, arranged in the fashion of Central
Asia, rather than that of China. Some of the details, however, are
world-wide, notably the svasiika pattern scroll which appears in
alternately white and black oblique bands of fret near the outer
border.