A kesi 'phoenix' panel, 17th century | 十七世紀 緙絲鳳凰掛屏

Connecticut Private Collection, acquired in the 1990s, and thence by descent.

The treatment of the phoenix and rockwork in the present panel, with elongated curled plumage and broad black outlines, suggest a late Ming or early Qing date of production. Compare a large 'phoenix' panel attributed to the late 16th-early 17th century, in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (accession no. 60.1). See another, attributed to the Qing period, illustrated in Feng Zhao, Treasures in Silk: An Illustrated History of Chinese Textiles, Hong Kong, 1999, pl. 09.07, and an early Qing 'peacock' panel, published in John E. Vollmer, Emblems of Empire: Selections from the Mactaggart Art Collection, Edmonton, 2009, p. 144. For slightly earlier Ming dynasty kesi weavings of birds, compare one of phoenixes in Beverley Jackson and David Hugus, Ladder to the Clouds: Intrigue and Tradition in Chinese Rank, Berkeley, 1999, fig. 07.002, and another of silver pheasants published in Vollmer, op. cit., p. 83.