A Chinese rug, late Ming,

With its directional composition and unusual treatment of certain design elements, the present lot is an unusual example of a small seventeenth-century Chinese rug. Generally, similar pieces of comparable size and proportions from the 1600s and the early 1700s have a clearly centralized arrangement of motifs with either a geometric field design or dragons positioned in a round format surrounded by cloud motifs. The present design of two large dragons flanking a central symbol is found on larger works such as the carpets woven for the Imperial Palace in Beijing, see König, Hans and Michael Franses, Glanz der Himmelssöhne: Kaiserlische Teppiche Aus China 1400-1750, London, 2005, pls. 2-4. Here, the dragons have long, undulating tails, which ascend and branch in an unusual fashion when compared to most seventeenth-century dragon carpets, such as those on the two Michaelian rugs, König, Hans and Michael Franses, ibid., pls. 34 and 35. The borders of these rugs and mats are generally geometric in design often having a Greek key motif, see König, Hans and Michael Franses, ibid., pls. 36 and 37 and Tiffany Studios, Antique Chinese Carpets, Tokyo, 1969, pl. II. Here the composition clearly has one viewpoint, emphasized by the mountain and wave motif at the lower center, with symmetry to the design lent by the use of the central round shou symbol floating over three stylized clouds. Probably the most obvious untraditional element of the composition is the placement of the two facing dragons: here the two mythic beasts are not arranged symmetrically in the round as usual, see Franses, Michael, "Early Ninghsia Carpets," Hali, Vol. 5 No. 2, 1982, fig.10, p. 139, but rather facing each other with their bodies filling out the field. The open border is another unusual stylistic choice allowing the meandering pattern formed by the dragons' bodies to dominate the space. The tones of the present lot are typical to pieces from the Ming period, during which shades of blue, apricot, and dark brown were among the most frequently used colors. The use of silk warps in this rug may suggest that this piece was made for the use of members of the aristocracy or the court.