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Lot Essay
Up until the 15th century the region of Kansu in Western China was an important political and cultural corridor that linked the region of Ningxia in the east with the oases towns on the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang to the west. To the north was the wilderness of the Gobi desert, bordered beneath by the fertile and mountainous lands of Qinghai. Importantly, the silk route ran through the middle before dividing in two when reaching Xinjiang. Due to its geographical location, Kansu naturally became a transit stop for nomads, travellers and traders but simultaneously became a place of production, with contemporary literature documenting the presence of established looms within the houses of the settled Han Chinese population. As a result the carpets from Xinjiang, Ningxia and Kansu became, at times, hard to define but work has progressed, and Hans König's studies add new enlightenment to the subject (Hans König, “Gansu”, HALI, Issue 138, January-February 2005, pp.52-64).
The minimalist overall design of small daisy-like flowerheads on the present carpet, with a complete absence of a central medallion or spandrels, is striking in its simplicity. A smaller carpet with this design sold at Sotheby's London, 28 April 1992, lot 124 and a much larger carpet with the same design sold at Sotheby's New York, 3 December 2002, lot 31. Including the long gallery-like proportions of the present carpet, one can see how versatile the pattern was for producing carpets of varying size. Another closely related Kansu all-over pattern consists of small roundels in red, ivory or yellow on an inky-blue ground colour which was then framed by various geometric fret patterns and a cloud-collar or Kochak border. This design was coined Pu-lo by Hans Bidder who related it to a dyeing process used in north Tibetan fabrics of the Kiang Turk tribe (Hans Bidder, Carpets from Eastern Turkestan, Tübingen, 1964, p.95). A Kansu carpet of Pu-lo design but with the inclusion of a central roundel and spandrels sold in these Rooms, 18 October 2016, lot 26.
The striking 'cloud-head' border design of this lot is considered one of the most sought-after and archaic of all East Turkestan border patterns. According to Bidder (Bidder, op.cit., pp.64-65), the source of this design stems most probably from the Chinese single cloud design which has been manipulated into a reciprocal pattern. The cloud-head motif, known as Yün Tsai T'ou, derives from an archetypal Asian symbol of which a similar border motif is found on a 5th-6th century BC felt carpet found at Pazyryk in Siberia, now in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg. Another theory is that it is an adaptation of the prehistoric twin-horn motif, and represents the earthy dark counter-cloud. This (kotchak) design is one that is frequently used in Turkman carpets and jewellery, also symbolising male virility, originally deriving from the horns of a ram. The reciprocal nature of the design means that these are not necessarily mutually exclusive; each one can represent each half of the form.
The minimalist overall design of small daisy-like flowerheads on the present carpet, with a complete absence of a central medallion or spandrels, is striking in its simplicity. A smaller carpet with this design sold at Sotheby's London, 28 April 1992, lot 124 and a much larger carpet with the same design sold at Sotheby's New York, 3 December 2002, lot 31. Including the long gallery-like proportions of the present carpet, one can see how versatile the pattern was for producing carpets of varying size. Another closely related Kansu all-over pattern consists of small roundels in red, ivory or yellow on an inky-blue ground colour which was then framed by various geometric fret patterns and a cloud-collar or Kochak border. This design was coined Pu-lo by Hans Bidder who related it to a dyeing process used in north Tibetan fabrics of the Kiang Turk tribe (Hans Bidder, Carpets from Eastern Turkestan, Tübingen, 1964, p.95). A Kansu carpet of Pu-lo design but with the inclusion of a central roundel and spandrels sold in these Rooms, 18 October 2016, lot 26.
The striking 'cloud-head' border design of this lot is considered one of the most sought-after and archaic of all East Turkestan border patterns. According to Bidder (Bidder, op.cit., pp.64-65), the source of this design stems most probably from the Chinese single cloud design which has been manipulated into a reciprocal pattern. The cloud-head motif, known as Yün Tsai T'ou, derives from an archetypal Asian symbol of which a similar border motif is found on a 5th-6th century BC felt carpet found at Pazyryk in Siberia, now in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg. Another theory is that it is an adaptation of the prehistoric twin-horn motif, and represents the earthy dark counter-cloud. This (kotchak) design is one that is frequently used in Turkman carpets and jewellery, also symbolising male virility, originally deriving from the horns of a ram. The reciprocal nature of the design means that these are not necessarily mutually exclusive; each one can represent each half of the form.