Description
Elegant tone-on-tone blush color for this antique Chinese runner measuring 180 × 90 cm (5′ 10″ × 2′ 11″), silk fleece knotted on cotton warp and weft in the mid-twentieth century. After the 1912 Revolution the Pao-Tu style, where flowers, landscapes, objects of daily life, animals and symbolic objects of Chinese mythology and philosophy predominated, was banned. Four categories of designs were established, Aesthetic, Peking, Floral and Embossed Single Tone and many levels of quality were introduced. Regime-controlled factories flourished in Tientsin, Beijing, Shanghai, and many other centers, mainly for export. Subsequent political changes revived the ancient Pao-tu decorations. It should be noted that no other production area in the world achieves such a fully figurative effect with substantially coarse knotting as traditional Chinese carpets! This carpet is a clear example of how an artifact knotted in the last century can meet the most modern minimalist style.
