An imperial kesi panel of Puxian, Qing dynasty, Qianlong period

Acquired by Lady Edith Stewart Lockhart (1870-1950), Beijing, 1902, and thence by descent to her daughter, Mary Stewart Lockhart (1894-1985).

Gifted by the above to George Watson's College, Edinburgh, 1967.

Chinese Paintings from the Collection of Sir James Stewart Lockhart, Betty Joel Gallery, London, 1927, cat. no. 31.

Loan Exhibition of Chinese Imperial and Other Paintings, Betty Joel Gallery, London, 1937, cat. no. 15.

An Ardent Collector, City Art Centre, Edinburgh, 1982-1983, cat. no. 75 (back cover lot).

National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2003-2025 (on loan).

The auspicious scene rendered almost entirely in silk embroidery, the present hanging represents one of the finest examples of Qianlong period kesi tapestry ever to come to market. Embellished throughout with metallic threads, which intensify the majesty and serenity of the bodhisattva and his entourage, the hanging displays an extraordinarily close attention to detail and colour, which brings the scene to life. From his canopy which appears to blow serenely in the wind, to the suggestion of Puxian’s head in the mirror behind him; from the impossibly simple yet effective rendering of the gauze sutra box to the lavish clothing and hair of the attendants and elephants, the scale and quality of the present kesi is unrivalled in private collections.

Kesi, or ‘cut silk’ tapestry, is a complex type of tabby weave used for the finest decorative and devotional images since at least the Northern Song dynasty (960–1127). By discontinuing weft threads instead of letting them run the whole width of the fabric, colours could be woven in exactly where the design required. This technique provides the skilled weaver with enormous freedom in designing colour decoration and made it possible – with ample time and manpower – to weave extraordinary textile pictures as fine as ink paintings.

Indeed, though the origin of the present kesi design remains unknown, its quality and composition closely compare with examples preserved in the Qing Imperial Collections, evidently inspired by Tang (618-907), Song (960-1279) and Ming dynasty (1368-1644) ink paintings. Compare, for example, a well-recorded series of related kesi panels depicting the Shakyamuni, Dipankara and Maitreya Buddhas alongside attendants – interestingly also entitled Kesi Wuliangshoufo (‘Kesi of the Buddha of Infinite Life’) – which Wang Yuegong and Ma Shengnan have traced to an original painting by Tang painter Lu Lengjia. As they derive from contemporaneous Imperial records, this Three-Buddha design appears to have first inspired a set of kesi panels in the early Qianlong period, which in turn inspired the commission of a further set on imperial command in the 19th year of the Qianlong reign (1754), with the addition of the Eighteen Arhats to the scene and other revisions; see Wang Yuegong and Ma Shengnan, ‘Qianlong chao “kesi wuliangshou zun fo” zhou kao’, Palace Museum Journal, 2024, no. 9, pp 4-12. Similarly compare two kesi tapestries preserved in the National Palace Museum, Taipei (accession no. gu si 000123, fig. 1) and Palace Museum, Beijing (accession no. gu 00072699), modeled after a Ming dynasty painting by Zheng Zhong (fl. ca. 1612–48), similarly preserved in the Qing Imperial Collection at the National Palace Museum (accession no. gu hua 000642, fig. 2).

While as yet undiscovered in the imperial records, the path of the present tapestry is very likely to follow the same pattern. From the allusion to the Ming imperial household (neifu) on its elaborate embroidered title slip to its composition, typical of Ming narrative scenes, this masterpiece was almost certainly commissioned on imperial orders after a beloved original. To date, only one other tapestry of this design is attested, rendered in more conventional embroidery, now preserved in the National Palace Museum, Taipei (accession no. gu si 000148, fig. 3). Almost identical in design and similarly mounted between two imperial-yellow panels of five-clawed dragons, the Taipei embroidery bears eleven imperial seal marks confirming its imperial ownership, including that of the third edition of the Midian Zhulin (‘Pearl forest of the imperial palace’), the imperial catalogue of Buddhist and Daoist paintings and embroideries, compiled in 1744 and revised to include new Qianlong and Jiaqing acquisitions in 1815.

Imperial kesi tapestries of this scale and quality appear very rarely on the market and are otherwise almost exclusively preserved in Taipei and Beijing. Compare a related Qianlong tapestry depicting the Sanxing with a directly comparable panel in the Chuxiugong (Palace of Gathering Excellence), Beijing, sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 30th May 2006, lot 1264; and a panel depicting Amitayus, sold most recently in our Hong Kong rooms, 13th October 2021, lot 3652.