Zitianlu with tapestry

[Kesi Zitianlu]

Kesi Zitianlu, Northern Song Dynasty, 45.7 cm in length and 27.3 cm in width. The old collection of the Qing Palace
This fabric takes purple as the ground, and is decorated with patterns of deer, moon rabbit, exotic animal and phoenix in the dense flowers. Its tapestry technique is not complicated, mainly flat and circular tapestry, but it is unique in its expressive technique. The treatment of flower and leaf layers not only relies on shading and color configuration, but also uses different weft density to express, that is, the weft at the center is fine and dense, and the weft is gradually thick outward. There are purple, dark green, brown, orange, beige, light tea, lake blue, ethereal, beige, etc. The layout of dense flowers everywhere and the shape and color of flower patterns are all very characteristic of the times
This piece of tapestry was originally made of calligraphy and painting. Another piece of the same kind of work was allocated by the Cultural Relics Bureau in the 1950s. The composition, color matching and technique of the fabric are basically the same, only slightly different in the specific animal patterns. It is suspected that it is different parts of the same fabric.