Artwork Page for Textile with Phoenixes and Dragons

Details / Information for Textile with Phoenixes and Dragons

Textile with Phoenixes and Dragons

1279–1368

China, Yuan dynasty

(1260-1368)
Medium
Silk and gold thread; lampas
Measurements
Overall: 20.3 x 20 cm (8 x 7 7/8 in.); Mounted: 31.4 x 31.1 cm (12 3/8 x 12 1/4 in.)
Credit Line
Edward L. Whittemore Fund 1995.73
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
Print

Description

This is one of the very few northern Chinese silk and gold textiles to have survived from the Yuan dynasty. The curled dragons chasing pearls, the phoenixes, and the background of tiny hexagons are Chinese motifs, but the lobed roundels enclosing the dragons and phoenixes indicate the influence of eastern Iranian craftsmen who had been relocated to northern China. A red and gold silk woven with the same pattern is preserved in Beijing. The extraordinary survival of the two silks demonstrates that patterns were typically used over and over.
Dark brown and gold textile fragment patterned with scalloped circles in which curl dragons and phoenixes. Lower left, the only circle almost entirely preserved features a coiled dragon, mouth open towards a pearl with a spiral and a singular, branching flame extending from it. Two circles above have been cut off but the upper right shows arching tailfeathers and the open wing of a phoenix. Tiny hexagons fill in the background between circles.

Textile with Phoenixes and Dragons

1279–1368

China, Yuan dynasty (1260-1368)

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