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Details
A panel of silk brocade woven with 'Goat Riders',
the brown ground woven with a repeat pattern of boys seated on the backs of goats, bearing birds in cages suspended from branches of prunus blossom over their shoulders, with lotus sprays, flaming pearls and other Buddhist and Daoist symbols between, Ming Dynasty, 15th/16th century--23cm x 34cm, framed and glazed
See Illustration
the brown ground woven with a repeat pattern of boys seated on the backs of goats, bearing birds in cages suspended from branches of prunus blossom over their shoulders, with lotus sprays, flaming pearls and other Buddhist and Daoist symbols between, Ming Dynasty, 15th/16th century--23cm x 34cm, framed and glazed
See Illustration
Special notice
No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.
Further details
The symbolism of this piece celebrates the arrival of Spring and with it the New Year. The prunus blossom heralds the end of winter and the goat imagery plays upon the word for goat, yang, being a homonym for sun and thus investing the word with connotaions of new life and fertility. See 'When Silk was Gold', The Metropolitan Museum of Art, p194, no. 56 for an embroidery worked with similar imagery and a discussion of this symbolism.For a panel woven with identical design see 'The Art of Textiles', Spink and Son Ltd, London, December 1989, no 53, p44. Another similar panel was exhibited at The Textile Gallery, London, November 1998, in 'Textile Art from the Silk Road'.