Page 94 - Chinese Works of Art Bonhams Sept 2015

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A LADIES’ INFORMAL RED-GROUND KESI SILK ROBE, CHANGFU

Late Qing dynasty

The bright red robe woven with three roundels on the front, three on between the colors, hence the name kesi or ‘cut silk’. The technique is

the back and one on each sleeve, each roundel formed of twisting extremely time-consuming and skilled, achieving a reverse that is often

leafy vines issuing geometrically-patterned double gourds and as well-presented as the front of the fabric.

encircling a pair of butterflies with gold antennae and four further

butterflies, the collar and wide cuffs similarly formed of kesi black Butterflies are symbolic of marital union, and vines and gourds

silk with butterflies and gourds, the hem with dragons rising towards suggestive of health and fertility. Together with the celebratory red

stylized mountains amid rolling waves issuing Buddhist Symbols. ground, the robe may have been intended for a joyous wedding feast.

56 3/4in (144.4cm) long

$30,000 - 50,000 Two related red-ground kesi informal ladies’ robes dated to the late

19th century, but each with cranes within the roundels, are illustrated

晚清 紅地緙絲瓜瓞綿綿團紋朝服 by R. D. Jacobsen, Imperial Silks: Ch’ing Dynasty Textiles in The

Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Vol. I, Minneapolis, 2000, pp. 256-6

The kesi technique is a particularly intricate way of introducing and 264-5, nos. 98 and 102. Another robe dated to the 19th century

pattern within the weave of the fabric: the various colors are woven is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, no.1978.159, the

on separate bobbins creating the ‘cut’ effect at the boundaries gift of Mr. and Mrs. George Fenmore in 1978.

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