NORTH CHINA, SECOND HALF 18TH CENTURY

The design of the present carpet combines two of the most iconic motifs of Chinese carpets from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the scrolling lotus and the dragon. It is a more harmonious and successfully realised version of a carpet sold in the Battilossi Tappeti d'Antiquariato sale in these Rooms, 11 February 1998, lot 118. The Battilossi carpet has a closely related scrolling lotus field with angular stepped dragon spandrels and reciprocal dragon medallion, but the design appears cramped and is somewhat awkward. The current lot avoids this overlapping of elements by giving space to the central medallions and spandrels by encircling them with a cloud-lattice design which is very similar to two earlier, 17th-century carpets illustrated in Michael Franses and Hans König, Glanz der Himmelssohne, Kaiserliche Teppiche Aus China 1400-1750, London, 2005, pl. 42 and 43, pp.126-127.