National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

Sec. ü] LIST OF PAINTINGS, TEXTILES, ETC., FROM CHIEN-FO-TUNG ' 1069

Ch. 1v. 0026. Painted silk banner with head-piece ; all streamers lost. Head-piece of buff silk orig. painted with floral design, and binding of same ; in bad condition. Painting somewhat broken, but colours fresh.

Subject : Bodhisallva, with flaming jewel. Pose, coiffure, and dress the same as in Ch. 0083 ; i. 005, and fig. prob. traced from same orig. R. hand, however, holds flaming jewel instead of censer, and many small alterations occur in

painting details of dress and jewels.   Chief of these is
addition of gauzy blue stole which drapes upper arm and fills up spaces of background between hanging draperies. Inside of ears, and hands, and lower lines of feet are drawn in red.

Colours gay, varied, and well-preserved ; the most prominent being bright crimson and copper-green of V-shaped stole, and light blue of halo centre, streamers, gauzy stole, and lotus underfoot. Colouring otherwise composed of pale pink, chocolate, orange-yellow, and red. Outlines uneven in thickness, and workmanship generally less careful than in Ch. 0083 ; i. 005.

Painting 2' 4' x 64", length with head-piece 2' 9".

Ch. Iv. 0028. Votive patchwork, composed of rectang. pieces of figured silks, damasks, and embroideries, with border of printed silk ; the whole backed variously with cream, brown, golden-yellow, light blue, and sage-green silks, and in places with a brilliant red linen. Most of centre and lower middle part is lost, but remainder shows carefully designed balance of colours and materials. Surface worn but still glossy, and colours glowing and varied, giving a very rich effect.

All round runs a 6" border of printed silk, much faded, but showing an exceedingly graceful design (PI. CXXII) of entwining and parting stems, bearing heart-shaped or narrow leaves and wide-open five-petalled flowers. In spaces formed by parting stems grow free-end sprays, to which cling,' with beak and claw, pairs of confronting parrots. Printed in dark blue, green, and peach-colour (?) with fawn ground ; outline of design left the natural colour of silk. The whole border was orig. made of this, but it has been repaired in places with another printed silk of like colouring and a larger floral design too fragmentary for reconstruction. It is lined with fine cream damask, woven in reversed twills, one for the ground, the other showing a peculiar pattern of squares or oblongs connected by parallel lines.

The chief fabrics in body of patchwork are as follows (the numbers corresponding to those on key covering Pl. CVIII) :

Figured silks. [z] Figured silk with design of alternating rosettes and four-armed floral spots like that of Ch. 00171. Same weave ; paler and more delicate colouring of soft blue and green (flowers and leaves), brown (stems), and yellow (outlines of octagon, etc.) on creamy ground. Frayed in places, but otherwise fairly preserved.

[2] Figured silk in satin twill, soft buff silk warp; pattern, rows of four-petalled rosettes with small trefoils springing from ends of petals and from between each pair, and making continuous circle round flower. Rosettes rosy-pink (?) or buff with buff trefoils ; ground dark peacock-blue. Surface much worn.

3. Figured silk, woven in multiplicity of variegated bands, complete scheme of which cannot be recovered from frs. Ground throughout a single cloth woven in small twill, with a very fine buff warp slightly stiffened and weft of white, brown, dark and pale blue, tomato-red, light and myrtle green, running in bands which vary from }" to r in width. Some of narrower bands are plain, but majority have further inwoven orn. in the shape of (a) a row of single large hexagonal rosettes, pink and white on myrtle-green, green and pink (?) on white, or dark blue and green on tomato-red; or (b) a row of smaller rosettes, each alternate rosette having a pair of spreading leaves springing from top and bottom petals, the leaves light green, the flowers pink on myrtle-green or dark blue on red ; or (c) small flattened lozenge-shaped rosettes, white on brown or buff on blue ; or (d) a line of half-rosettes and chevrons, yellow or white on buff ; or (e) large rosettes woven in white or in bands of contrasting colours over group of five or six of narrower ground stripes.

For all this additional pattern separate weft threads are introduced, being carried along back of material in bands where required and brought. into web only where a flower occurs. When brought to the surface, in majority of rosettes, this weft is not inwoven with warp, but passes over as many of its ends as necessary to form the width of petal, and is then taken behind. The surface of the petal therefore presents a series of unprotected threads, which have largely been worn away, exposing the warp. Where the rosettes are placed over a series of ground stripes, they are woven in twill like the ground. For other true brocades of same weave, see Ch. 00170 and 0065. .

4. Figured silk, fine satin twill ; much faded and design almost effaced, but apparently consisted of running stems forming crescent-shaped loops with flowers at tips, and detached pair of outspread leaves above each flower. Rows alternately mainly green and mainly blue, with touches of dark brown, white, and yellow, on reddish-bronze ground.

5. Figured silk, in several small pieces joined ; a true double cloth, loose weave, much perished ; pattern apparently large rosettes with pairs of leaves above and below. Double warp consists of (a) very fine stiffened buff yarn ; (b) broad flat soft yarn of dark myrtle-green ; (c) double weft of very fine green yarn ; (d) thicker soft yarn, rose-pink, white, or blue as required. Broad yarns (b) and (d) alone show on surface, (c) and (a) with which they interweave being practically invisible ; (b) myrtle-green forms ground, and (d) pattern. Cf. Ch. 0076 for corresponding effect obtained with single exceedingly fine warp and double broad weft.

6. Figured silk, in fine satin twill ; pattern may be reconstructed from [8], here only two small frs. incomplete. Larger shows part of large rosette band, dark blue on scarlet ground (faded) with dark blue trefoils and quatrefoils, and foliage in light green above and below. Smaller shows lower edge of band of large green rosettes with green trefoils in spandrels; below these white horizontal trefoils, and below them pair of confronting ducks admirably executed. Yellow heads, necks, and curling wing tips, white breasts, blue backs, green beaks and tails, red eyes.