WEST CHINA, EARLY 19TH CENTURY

It is generally believed that a sponsor or a sponsoring group gifted pillar and banner rugs, often in pairs, to temples for festival days. The unusual tapered form of this pillar rug indicates that it was given to a specific temple for a specific pillar and would have wrapped around the pillar so that the dragon form would spiral continuously up the pillar. A nearly identical tapered pillar rug, and possibly the pair to this rug, was exhibited at Birdshake's Antique Oriental Rug Gallery, San Francisco, 17 June-3 August, 1974, no. 7.