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Lot Essay
The present carpet, like the preceding lot in this sale, was most probably woven as a cover for a day bed or kang. The elegant lattice design of this carpet is known as a 'longevity' or 'cloud-lattice' pattern. The origin of the design remains mysterious, but due to its appearance in the carpets of East Turkestan, China, and India it seems likely to stem from the trading routes of the Silk Road and it has been suggested that it may derive from silk textile designs (Edoardo Concaro and Alberto Levi, Sovrani Tappeti, Milan, 1999, p.174). The design is also found within Chinese architecture and furniture where pierced fret work screens play with contrasting light and dark forms and solid and voids spaces.
The coffered gul lattice of the present lot is filled with auspicious Chinese symbols arranged in alternate rows of either the bat, representing good fortune, or the peach, a symbol of long life. lot 67 in the present sale is an early 17th century Ningxia rug that contains the same stylised bat but is set within another complex fret-work lattice variant. There are a large number of carpets and fragments that have the same design as the present lot but with slight variations within the minor stripes. However, a carpet with exactly the same cloud-lattice field, swastika-fret border and scrolling hooked-motif minor stripe as our carpet, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (M. Dimand and J.Mailey, Oriental Rugs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1973, no.199, p.338 and fig.268). The design also appears on a carpet in a private collection in New York, published in Michael Franses and Hans König, Glanz der Himmelssohne, Kaiserliche Teppiche Aus China 1400-1750, London, 2005, p.156, pl.56, and on a smaller seat cover from the Michael and Judy Steinhardt Collection, New York, (Franses and König, ibid. p.157, pl 57).
The coffered gul lattice of the present lot is filled with auspicious Chinese symbols arranged in alternate rows of either the bat, representing good fortune, or the peach, a symbol of long life. lot 67 in the present sale is an early 17th century Ningxia rug that contains the same stylised bat but is set within another complex fret-work lattice variant. There are a large number of carpets and fragments that have the same design as the present lot but with slight variations within the minor stripes. However, a carpet with exactly the same cloud-lattice field, swastika-fret border and scrolling hooked-motif minor stripe as our carpet, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (M. Dimand and J.Mailey, Oriental Rugs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1973, no.199, p.338 and fig.268). The design also appears on a carpet in a private collection in New York, published in Michael Franses and Hans König, Glanz der Himmelssohne, Kaiserliche Teppiche Aus China 1400-1750, London, 2005, p.156, pl.56, and on a smaller seat cover from the Michael and Judy Steinhardt Collection, New York, (Franses and König, ibid. p.157, pl 57).