On picking one, or, why aesthetics should be taught in school

You know about the silk brocade wrapper, I suppose. Except... this one is yellow. And you know what that means, of course.














The quality of the painting is very impressive: note that this bird is about 5 cm long in the original!


But then you turn it over to see the seal and... no, it does not say "Made in the Qianlong reign of the Great Qing"! It says... Gugong -- which is to say, of course, The National Palace Museum.


These copies -- this one is of a very famous Qianlong piece dated to 1742 (see here) -- are mass produced now, somewhere on the Mainland -- I am told in Guangdong. But they are produced by traditional techniques and the level of technical attainment is really very high.

Picking the vase I wanted from among the seven that were available was an interesting exercise:

1. One was not stable -- something went wrong with the foot in the initial firing.

2. Another one I rejected because of its shape -- the gall-bladder shape is famously difficult to reproduce. This is important -- the potter must achieve seemless, shoulderless curvature as the body profile inflects from concave to convex around the neck and shoulder (which ought to be indistinguishable). This is very hard to do. The rejected piece looked decidedly shouldered, even square-shouldered, like a football player in armor, and therefore -- graceless. Even in this case, the shape is not perfect, but at best satisfactory. My vase is therefore not a true collector's item; it will neither appreciate in value nor even store it. But I could not have the best shaped vase -- which was as close to perfect as I have ever seen: its painting was awful; and I wanted to have one of these -- on my desk, now, and it had to be at least passable.

3. I rejected another vase because it had a firing flaw: a serious flaw, in fact: too large to be on display in the museum. The piece ought to have been destroyed at the workshop, not shipped out to ruin the potter's name.

4. I rejected another yet because it had a barely perceptible stain on the glaze -- someone handled it with dirty hands before second firing and fixed his fingerprint in eternity for us to admire.

5. And among the remaining three there were noticeable differences in the quality of painting. This painter pleased me especially with his fine, small-brush detail of bird feathers, even though his flowers were paler than on the other vases; nor was his tree bark as gratifyingly gnarly. But I figured: this genre of decoration -- huaniao -- flowers and birds -- requires well painted birds, right?

Back in the days of Qianlong, one vase -- or perhaps two -- would have been selected from among not seven but perhaps -- a thousand; and the rest of the production -- would have been destroyed. The resulting unsurpassed quality of the imperial pieces affects their price (in tens of millions of dollars these days, if you can ever find one) as much as the fact that they once belonged to The Main Man Himself.

*

A footnote is in order. "Mass produced" -- a word I used above -- is a funny word: it still takes many men and many man-hours to produce each bottle by hand... And the quality of the best pieces is hardly "mass" in any way. I should really be careful about what I say...

After all, the production run cannot be very large: all the porcelain people here confirm this: the production of these copies has moved to China, true, but that was not much of a loss because... -- and this is the point -- the market for them has disappeared. Modern Taiwanese middle class is no longer educated to appreciate the traditional arts. In fact, Taiwanese middle class, like the middle class everywhere else in the world, is no longer educated at all in terms of aesthetics. It is taught to be good doctors and engineers and brokers and mathematicians -- those things which advance the state's cause of ever-rising GDP; but in the matter of enjoyment of life's pleasures, the middle class is left to its own devices, abandoned by the education system, left languishing in the joyless darkness of ignorance. Absent most rudimentary guidelines, it is preyed upon by the purveyors of childish glitter and empty notoriety -- the sort of BS in art it would not accept from quack doctors or fake religious prophets.

Now, if, like me, you think that sex education is a good thing not only because it allows for family planning and disease control but also because it helps people experience more joy in their lives -- makes them happier, and therefore, presumably more productive and more law abiding -- then you must admit that there are good arguments for instating aesthetic education in school.

Wei jun nan

.
Good things always come wrapped in silk brocade.


In this case, it is a chop -- and its vermilion ink pad:


The chop is made from veined resin in a kind of dark ceremonial red. On the side is inscribed a suitable classical quotation:


And on top, a crouching dragon:


And here is the impression in a kind of seal script:


It says... taoyen gongzuo -- "bung work".

The chop carver took a double-take when I presented to her my order. "You want it to say what?" she asked, her eyes as big as frying pans. "How can one possibly want to make such a seal!?" Chops are either utilitarian -- they serve his in place of our signatures -- for signing bank and legal documents -- or else suitably morally edifying or propitious, or both.

So, I told her about this seal:


It belonged to Yongzheng, Kangxi's son and successor, father of Qianlong; one of China's best and most effective administrators and one of the most interesting, complex characters ever to sit on her throne. He had been a low ranking son and, never expected to succeed to the crown, he'd been left to enjoy life of cultured and cultivated leisure until, suddenly, an unforeseeable sequence of events elevated him to the throne in middle age. Once crowned, he dedicated himself wholly to the duties of his office out of the Confucian sense of moral duty -- to his ancestors and his subjects -- but without any sense of pleasure. I guess it was with a sense of longing that he continued to sponsor, throughout his reign, paintings which portrayed him in his former life: enjoying hunting, literary gatherings, palace games with his concubines, his large collection of art. He used this seal for his private purposes: to seal private letters and as an ex-libris mark on his favorite art objects. It reads: wei jun nan: "it is hard to be emperor".

The Sanguszko

Not a Sanguszko, actually

Last night I froze speechless before a huge (four by six meters) Iranian carpet produced by Miri.

Miri has been making modern recreations of traditional pieces of incredible color and quality -- (absolutely the smallest knots I have ever seen). On account of their workmanship and beauty, some of their pieces have been bought by museums. Yet, their catalog (and website) do not show any of their work, God (the Merciful, the Compassionate) only knows why. (But they do show their good looking chief designer, who is very much worth seeing). Try to get your hands on the promo catalog of their closest competitor too, though -- Woven Legends -- the reproductions in it are fantastic.

*

Last night, in a deep pomegranate field minuscule red lions and leopards bit into the necks of helplessly thrashing deer; angels floated in pairs while playing lyres; dragons intertwined with peacocks; and men raced on horseback with their swords up-raised. The carpet, I was told, was a kind of... Sanguszko.

I did a double take: a -- who?

(Out of that name, like out of a madeleine dipped in tea, an image of an old aunt floated up before my eyes).

*

The title of Princes, which the family Sanguszko claim, we are told by no less authority than New York Times, is Polish.

It isn't.

It's Lithuanian.

The Sanguszko are descended from Fiodor, brother of Jagiello, the Grand Duke of Lithuania (he later became king of Poland; and in time fathered Wladyslaw Warnenczyk, him of the Madeira fame); and through Fiodor, they descend from Gedymin, one of the greatest heroes of the Lithuanian heroic age.

(There were no princely titles in Poland just as there were no court ranks: in Poland which was a Res Publica -- with an elective king -- all nobles ("citizens") were equal, including my folk. But in Lithuania there were two sorts of princes -- Lithuanian -- those descended from the Grand Dukes, i.e. cousins of the royal house; and Ruthenian -- descendants of Rurik, the founder of the Ruthenian state, and, Russians say, Russia. (Ukrainians disagree). My folk in time came to call themselves counts -- which made them liars. But the Sanguszko are the real thing: blood royal; a off-shoot of the Gedymin tree. In time, they polonized and called themselves Polish, but their roots, and title, were 100% Lithuanian).

*

Sometime early in the last century the Sanguszkos have deposited a carpet with the New York Met. There it was seen by millions and by the virtue of the fact became quite famous while the Sanguszkos frolicked all over the world (last time I checked, in Sao Paolo, Brasil). Then, in 1994, the last Sanguszko living decided to put the carpet up for sale. (One familiar with the ways of Polish noblemen might enjoy imagining an astronomical gambling debt incurred overnight). As the Met could not raise the money fast enough -- the sum of 4 million bucks was reported -- the carpet went to the Miho Museum of Art. ("Globalization").

Where it may not be seen, of course. (Hey, what are museums for).

*

The carpet is Safavid -- it was made in Kerman, in the 16th century. It is considered the finest example of a group of about sixteen similar carpets dispersed across the world. They are distinguished by their extremely fine workmanship -- it is said that the pattern can be made out on the reverse -- and color; and their figural patterns (rather than the usual geometric and vegetal). There is an interesting paper¹ trying to make out the meaning of the pattern and figures. The carpet represents the heavens seen from earth; the border that runs around it is the heaven's first gate; the medallion in the middle, the second; and the small circle in the center: the third and highest (behind which stands the veiled Throne of God). (It is a kind of perspective, don't you see). The dragons entwined about it are Chinese in origin: the yin-and-yang, but in Persian they are also a pun (mobram -- "entwined", but also "inevitable"). Yet, the symbol is Zoroastrian (eternal struggle between Light and Darkness). The felines devouring the horses represent the fate of those who do not follow the path (gor -- "onager" but also "infidel"). The tigers are black with gold stripes -- the reverse of facts on earth -- because these are heavenly tigers. The central medallion and the two escutcheons are geometric representations of the Shamanist two-headed Sun Bird. The strange birds -- swans on crane's legs -- are souls of the faithful waiting to be born.

Etc.

These figural carpets were made during a short period in the 16th century and may have gone out of production on account of the revival of Shi'ite orthodoxy under Shah Tahmasp (of coffee-renouncing, atelier-dispersing fame). The paper goes on to argue that certain kinds of geometric patterns and designs popular in later eras may derive from them, being, as it were, coded allusions.

Fascinating stuff. Possibly untrue, too, but makes one want to see the Sanguszko all the same -- doesn't it? Sadly I am unable to find a reproduction to show you. (I can always go to my friendly local carpet dealer to take a look myself... But I'd like to show it to you, too, so if you find a photo, do send it to me for posting).

(The carpet above is not a Sanguszko, it belongs to a category known as Royal Hunting Carpets, which were made at about the same time).

*

How did this Kerman get into Sanguszko hands?

Why, through a heroic deed of arms, of course. At the battle of Chocim (Khotim), 1621, the second of the four which fought there -- Chocim is quite literally a swinging sort of place. It was among the many carpets the Commonwealth cavalry took from the Turks. The Commonwealth Cavalry charging the Turkish camp in order to seize Persian carpets is a bit of an East European tradition. Perhaps the Sanguszkos, who took part in the charge in 1621, took this one at the division of spoils on account of its pattern -- it includes the motif of a man charging on horseback with a sword up-raised. (You can see a similar figure in the carpet above). And he looks a lot like Pogon, the Sanguszkos' coat of arms.


¹ Schuyler van R. Cammann, "Cosmic Symbolism on Carpets from the Sanguszko Group", in Studies in Art and Literature of the Near East, New York, 1974.

A western meibutsu

Speaking of meibutsu, this must surely rank among the ultimate meibutsu of the west: The Farnese Cup. Just read this entry from the usual place:

After Octavian's conquest of Egypt in 31 BC, the Farnese Cup was acquired by the Treasury of Rome. It was later brought to Byzantium, then back west after this city was sacked in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade. By the 15th century it was in the court of Frederick II, from which it then reached the Persian court of Herat or possibly Samarkand, from where it found its way to the court of Alfonso of Aragon in Naples. Lorenzo the Magnificent finally purchased the famous "scutella di calcedonio" in Rome, in 1471. From there it came into the possession of the Farnese family and thus into the Naples National Archaeological Museum (Inv. MANN 27611).

OK?

The cup is.... Oh, what the heck, read the whole entry:

It is a phiàle (libation plate). The internal decoration is an elaborate allegory of Ptolemaic Egypt's prosperity. It operates on two levels, one Egyptian, the other Greek.

It presumably represents the Egyptian divine triad, Serapis-Isis-Harpocrates or, alternatively, the Eleusinian triad: Hades/Pluto-Demeter-Triptolemos.

On the bottom are female figures possibly personifying the seasons. Two male figures soaring in flight above the divine triad represent the propitious Etesian winds that blow during the summer. On the exterior, a large apotropaic Gorgonian mask glares threateningly at the enemies of the state.

Produced at the court of the Ptolemies, other interpretations of the figures have them being Cleopatra III, her husband Ptolemy VIII and their son Ptolemy X Aléxandros. Through the amalgamation of Egyptian and Greek deities and their identification with members of the royal family, this dynasty tried to perpetuate the traditional conception of divine power they had inherited from pharaonic Egypt.

It is now displayed -- if that is what you call its barely lit presence in the back of a room in the back of beyond of the Naples museum, conspicuous for its darkness, emptiness, and a general sense of abandonment and unkemptness. To reach it, one walks through several cavernous rooms which appear to have the general impression of a waiting room - or perhaps left luggage room -- in a rarely frequented Stalinist style railroad station somewhere in Shaanxi province (perhaps Datong?); other cabinets in the same room are empty and dusty (perhaps, by now, cobwebbed). One almost wishes for it to have died a heroic death, like that certain meibutsu smashed to bits by a daimyo in front of his assembled retainers after he had received it from Oda Nobunaga in reward for his participation in a campaign. (Oda was famously stingy with his retainers). Damn useless piece of junk! announced the warlord, chagrined to be unable to pay his men real money for their work. Poof! went the meibutsu.

Or perhaps the Farnese Cup is like the Sleeping Princess? You have to overcome all sorts of obstacles to reach her -- including not letting yourself be deceived by the unassuming appearance of the rooms immediately preceding her; and not being diverted by the unjustly far more famous Farnese Bull, but once you have reached her -- she is all yours, yours alone.

The annual summer solistice artifact quiz, second clue

Well, alas no, Mrs Ziuta K. of Wolomin, but thank you for participating in our quiz. No, alas, no, the answer to our quiz is not "Kamiya-guro", as you can clearly see by looking at Kamiya-guro, here.

(For the rest of you, dear readers, "Kamiya-guro" is a chaki-meibutsu (sometimes also called meibutsu-gari): it is a storied, named tea utensil, an item cherished as much for its aesthetic appeal as for its illustrious provenance. You can see several storied, named objects here (in the Mitsubishi Electric Museum) and read more about the concept here, on a page published by one of the leading tea-ceremony schools in Tokyo; a more interesting reading is perhaps this article by Herbert Plutschow, detailing in its chapter 7 the many ways in which chaki-meibutsu were used by the great generals of the civil war period (ca. 1570-1600) as symbols of power and objects of ritual. It's hard not to admire these guys' commitment to tea-ceremony in particular, and culture in general, the outward manifestation of the idea that a warrior's excellence does not reside in his superior military skills, but, on the contrary, his superior military skills are a function of his overall excellence of character; and that a warrior's chief object is not the seizure of political power but seizure of power for the sake of subsequent engagement in unbridled cultural enjoyment).

Anyhow, as we still do not have a winner, here is your second clue. This one should make it clear to all that the object of the quiz is not the cup in the painting fragment last posted, but rather the painting itself. Thus, you now you have two clues: beautifully manicured ladies hands holding precious art objects.

So -- any guesses?

The annual summer solistice artifact quiz, first clue

The game is called: Identify the art object. Here is your first clue. Any guesses?

The Aldobrandini twelve

Ippolito Aldobrandini, in time Pope Clement VIII, commissioned twelve tazze, or elaborate table-top ados, which are known by his name. They were executed between 1573 and 1577, mostly likely by a northern (cherman?) artist working to an Italian design. They represent the twelve roman emperors featured in the histories of Suetonius (the statuette), and the major events of the reign of each (on the plate). The last time all twelve were together was 1861; the set was subsequently scattered, and, what is worse, some individual pieces were disassembled and reassembled again -- some wrongly.

(I would like to know why they were scattered, but have been unable to find the story so far; surely, they would have been more valuable as a set? Something odd must have transpired, but what? Inheritance, perhaps? As for the disassembly -- the explanation is simple: the owner had a mechanically-minded twelve year old son).

This one, in the possession of the Minneapolis Arts Institute (who?!), shows the figure of Augustus and the events from the reign of -- Caligula. See this page for a zoom-in view: the details are really impressive and the most amazing thing about it is its color: it's gilt silver, but somehow barely gilt: the color is the palest-yellow-tinged, extremely subtle and very beautiful. The chemist in me wants to know how this effect was achieved.

I have found two of these in Portugal: a complete one at Medeiros Almeida - of Emperor Tiberius, beautifully displayed allowing one a close-up stare; and an incomplete one (only the plate) at Arte Antigua, also well displayed if not well lit. There is another one at Victoria and Albert, but the VA website won't tell you which emperor they have. (Maybe it's an embarrassing emperor?)

(Nor will the VA let you zoom in on their tazza. Let the provincials struggle for cheap popularity, not us).

Another tazza was sold at an auction in July 2000 for 1.6 million bucks. At these sort of prices, and with public museums owning some, the twelve are not likely to be put together ever again.

*

Looking at the Arte Antiga tazza today, I discovered it was much richer gold than the Medeiros piece. It was also dented: perhaps that's your explanation: it had been dropped, damaged, and had to be regilt. But it was regilt by someone who did not know the original recipe and so came out yellow as an egg-yoke.

The workmaship, of course, remains extraordinary.

He Da Man 100% for sure

.

Crossing the frozen river, undated, poem and calligraphy in running script by Emperor Kangxi; hanging scroll, ink on gold-flecked paper; imperial seals: Kangxi chen han (Kangxi imperial brush), Jigu youwen zhu zhang (seal of examining the ancient to improve culture); Yuanjian zhai (studio of profound descernment); collectors' seals: Baoji sanbian (volume 3 of the Precious Collection of the Stone Moat Pavillion); Shiqiu baoji suo cang (Collected in the Precious Collection of the Stone Moat Pavillion); Xuangtong zunqin zhi bao (Treasure of the esteemed parents of the Xuantong Emperor); Jiaoyubu dianyan zhi zhang (Inspection seal of the Department of Education). A Palace Museum holding, Beijing.

What an interesting person Kangxi was, Louis XIV alter-ego in the east. The Three Emperors puts it right when it says that there had never been anyone like him in all of China's history; that he had to work without a model. Culturally he was part Manchu (horseman, hunter, warrior) and part Chinese (scholar, administrator, poet, painter, collector). As if intentionally to exercise sprezzatura, he wrote only passable Chinese calligraphy and composed but half-decent Chinese poetry, carefully avoiding the usual woos literati stuff (cherry blossoms, snow petals, reflections of the moon); his poetry is full of virile, manly, martial spirit. And thus this one reads:

Deep clouds hang over ten thousand cavalry.
A thousand flags echo in the teeth of the gale.
By midnight the river has iced over,
The imperial armies cross without fear.

Not great poetry perhaps, but it makes abundantly clear that the emperor wrote pants. Horseman's pants.

What artists write about

.
Any reader of Claudio Monteverdi's Letters, if he opens them hoping to learn something about the great man's take on art and music, is bound to be disappointed: the Letters contain nothing but matters of jobs, appointments and vacancies, promotions, pay, arrears, pay increase requests (usually rejected), reimbursement of job-related expenses, etc.

In this, it turns out, Monteverdi's Letters are universal. This is the typical artist prose.

Take this folio, signed by Muzaffar-'Ali, 1b of manuscript R. 957, at the Topkapi library, addressed to his sponsor, the great Bahram Mirza, a famous patron of books and younger brother of Shah Tahmasp (the one who, having stopped drinking coffee in his old age lost his mind, says Orhan Pamuk, and dispersed his atelier):

.

The beautifully dressed youth is Muzaffar-'Ali himself. And this is what he holds in his hand:



The calligraphy reads:

Royal Highness

Your servant, Muzaffar-'Ali, would like to bring to Your Highness's attention that it is known to Your Highness that the wages of this humble one while working for Your Highness were six tuman and now they are three tuman, and this situation has deeply distressed this humble one.

It then trails off:

Whatever Your Highness command...

I'd rather

I wake in the middle of the night. The moon is looking in, a soft cool breeze blows over my face, a feint scent of lemons wafts into the room. I lie thinking about banks, housing, residence, airline tickets, travel plans.

But I want to lie there thinking about Chinese snuff bottles instead. Like this darling (above), in carved glass.

(See some other wonderful examples of this art genre at the International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society's website).

*

Among the items on that website, there is something odd:


Snuff-bottle makers often worked in one medium to imitate another (e.g., carved porcelain to imitate ivory, etc.). So only one naturally asks -- what is this? It looks like... Dutch steamed rye bread?

The technique, we are told, is -- er? -- molded gourd.

What is molded gourd?, you might well ask. A modern-day practitioner of the art explains:

The small gourd fruit, after dropping its flower, is inserted through the mold opening. The gourd grows into the mold confines during the summer season. At frost time, the stem is cut leaving the mold with the gourd inside. The mold is then opened ad the gourd is set to dry.

Here are examples of his work. (It's really quite interesting).

How very, very weird.

*

Many snuff boxes were made in enameled copper -- they represent a kind of sub-genre. A copper enamel piece typically look like this:


(This page allows you to see this piece, once part of Qianlong's collection, now at National Palace Museum in Taipei, in all of its gloriously astounding detail).

At the very same NPM, there is a curious pair -- of European-made enameled copper snuff-bottles. Here is one of them:


They are of the usual shape typical of Chinese enameled copper pieces. Or rather close to it. But they differ in three ways: the colors are European; the roundel is a European miniature natura morta; and in the bottle cap there is... a miniature watch (clocks and watches being the only thing the Chinese were interested in buying from European merchants until the latter hit upon the idea of selling them opium).

Sadly, there appears to be no record of how, why, by whom or for whom the pair was made. Yet, there must be a rich story: the item was almost certainly commissioned as a gift from one person to another; the two certainly knew each other well and probably transacted business together; one -- the recipient -- collected snuff boxes; and was clearly a man of both means and exquisite taste; the other -- the giver -- had European contacts as well as considerable wherewithal. Since the order took two years to transmit to Europe, a year to make, and a year or two to return, the gifts was intended for, one assumes, an important, long term relationship. One also assumes the recipient could not have been too old: one does not plan five years in advance gifts to be given to septuagenarians.

(The Sherlock method works well in this instance, does it not?)

Anyway, this is the kind of stuff I would rather be thinking about.

Wouldn't you?

Histoire de l'empereur de la Chine

This is Emperor Sailing, one of a series of tapestries made at the royal manufactory at Beauvais, after a designs by Guy Vernansal, Jean-Baptise Belin de Fontenay and Jean-Baptise Monnoyer.

Writes Christie's who sold this particular work in 2004 (to Chicago Art Institute, as it happens):

[The series is thought to represent] the Chinese emperors Shun Chih (reigned 1644 - 1661) and Kang Hsi (reigned from 1661 - 1721) and their Empresses. Many of the images are based on Johan Nieuhof's Legatio batavica ad magnum Tartatiae chamum sungteium, modernum sinae imperatorem of 1665, which derived from the visit of a delegation of the Dutch East India Company to China from 1655 - 1657. For the botanical details Athanasius Kircher's China Monumentis qua Sacris qua Profanis of 1667 seems to have served as inspiration. As its title 'Roi de Chine' implied, the series was meant to illustrate the Chinese Royal Court, but many influences from other Far Eastern countries are discernable. The artists were keen to incorporate as many 'documented' exotic objects as possible in these tapestries.

Further discussion here.

Go here to zoom in on the remarkable detail.

Other tapestries from the series survive: here is one at the Getty (The Empress Sailing). The connection of these tapestries with Joachim Bouvet's book Histoire de l'empereur de la Chine, presentée au roy, 1699, printed by Meyndert Uytwerf, Paris, 1699 (and reprinted in Tientsin in 1940) is not clear; but Bouvet's connection with Louis XIV is clear: he was originally dispatched by His Most Christian Majesty with books and scientific instruments to the court of Kang-hsi as an envoy; he then served there as the emperor's tutor; and eventually became Kang-hsi's emissary to France.

One could say that one great difference between Louis XIV and the fellows like Steiner and Eco was that His Majesty, being a greater man, was interested in places outside of Europe. And how could he not be: on the opposite end of the globe there was someone like him, his double, perhaps his mirror image, a king of wisdom, virtue, art and gloire.

On precisely the other side of the world there existed his equal. There was one. How extra-ordinary.

Ottoman calligraphy on leaf

1) Take a leaf
2) Inscribe in gold ink or overlay with gold leaf
3) Soak in alkaline solution until connective tissue dissolves
4) Gild

The inscription is a formulaic prayer: "O Lord, grant me a good entry and a beautiful exit and support me with Thy might". The leaf is the especially difficult to handle (because fragile) chestnut.

Agha Khan collection.

A piece of Chinese embroidery

The Gulbenkian is an extraordinary collection: it is all, without exception, incredibly beautiful. M. Calouste was not merely very rich, and immensely knowledgeable about what he collected (and he collected an extraordinary range of stuff -- his range was certainly broader than George Steiner's), but he also had impeccable taste: he did not buy a single second-rate item.

This piece of embroidery is one of the most extraordinary items in the Gulbenkian. As far as I know it may be unique -- there may literally not be another item like this in the world. (Although the Kantha embroidery is similar in style and can on occasion come close in technical attainment).

This perhaps explains the difficulty the museum has with attribution; it used to be marked as "Canton, China (?), early 19th century", reflecting perhaps its similarity to the yueh techniques (not mentioned in the English wikipedia entry on Chinese embroidery); and the Chineseness of the phoenixes; but I notice it has now been re-attributed to "Japanese, 19th century", presumably on its mindboggling obsession with technical virtuosity, the extraordinary color scheme -- gorgeous without being gaudy, and perhaps also on the geometrical arrangement, balanced rather than symmetrical.

I will try to find out what occasioned this re-attribution, but personally doubt it. While the Chinese have had a history of making embroidered wall-hangings, a tradition of free-standing embroidery, and a history of Imperial embroidering workshops, the Japanese had none of these. Further, no piece of Japanese embroidery which I have ever seen I looks remotely similar in technique, using, as it does very thin thread to produce smooth, flat images easily mistaken for print.

But I am prepared to be surprised.

The cloth is about 6 feet x 4 feet; uses several different embroidering techniques in several different thicknesses of silk; and seems by and large missed by most visitors.

Here are some close-ups of the work. Note that it is embroidered all over, the background having been embroidered in a subtle, barely perceptible pattern of spirals.











PS. The high cultural status of embroidery in China is reflected by the fact that the great Ming Dynasty scholar-painters Wen Zhengming, Dong Qichang and Shen Zhou had all been famous in their lifetimes as great embroiderers.