textile; 紡織品(Chinese) BM-MAS.857

Period:Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Production date:9thC-10thC
Materials:silk, 絲綢 (Chinese),
Technique:woven, embroidered, couching stitch, 織造 (Chinese), 刺繡 (Chinese), 釘繡 (Chinese), satin stitch, 平繡 (Chinese), damask,
Subjects:bird and flower 花鳥 (Chinese)
Dimensions:Length: 92 centimetres Width: 23.50 centimetres

Description:
This fragment has been embroidered in satin stitch through two layers of fabrics: a white twill damask with floral pattern backed with a plain woven white silk. There is an intact selvedge, about 0.6 cm wide, on the plain woven silk. The piece was originally sewn in the form of an oblong cover, folded in half and joined along one edge and at the two ends. The main embroidered motif is an entwining flower in dark green, blue, yellow, brown, beige and orange, then outlined in silver wrapped threads, in couching stitch. Small flying birds (probably ducks) are dotted among the flowers, which are worked with gold wrapped threads couched by brown silk thread. Weave structures: A. White twill damask with floral pattern Warp: silk, untwisted, single, white, 45 ends/cm; Weft: silk, untwisted, single, white, 26 lats/cm. Weave structure: 1/5Z twill for pattern on 2/1Z twill for foundation. B. White silk plain weave Warp: silk, untwisted, single, white, 58 ends/cm; Weft: silk, untwisted, single, white, 26 lats/cm. Weave structure: 1/1 plain weave. Embroidery: Threads: silk thread: Z twisted; Colours: dark green, blue, yellow, brown, beige and orange etc. Gold and silver threads: a silk core, Z-2S ply, white, wrapped with gold and silver foil, probably on cotton paper substrate. Stitch: satin stitch for the silk threads, couching stitch for the gold and silver threads. 原件爲長方形繡袋，對折，兩端及一邊縫合而成，現已打開拆成一長方形繡片。繡地兩層，白色花卉紋綾背襯白色絹，在繡片一側可見絹的幅邊，寬約0.6cm。繡片以纏枝花卉爲主體紋樣，用墨綠、藍、黃、棕、米、橙等各色絲線以平針繡成，並釘繡撚銀線以緣邊，花間點綴有以盤金繡繡成的飛鳥圖案，每兩根金線用棕色絲線同時釘繡。 組織結構： A. 白色花卉紋綾 經線：絲，無撚，單根排列，白色，45根/cm；緯線：絲，無撚，單根排列，白色，26根/cm；組織：2/1Z向斜紋地上以1/5Z向斜紋顯花。 B. 白色絹 經線：絲，無撚，單根排列，白色，58根/cm；緯線：絲，無撚，單根排列，白色，26根/cm；組織：1/1平紋。 刺繡： 繡線：絲，Z撚；色彩：墨綠、深藍、淺藍、黃、淺黃、淺棕、棕、米、橙色等。撚金線：芯線，絲，白色，兩根S撚以Z撚併合。撚銀線：芯線，絲，白色，兩根S撚以Z撚併合。 針法：絲線繡爲平針，金、銀線用釘針和盤針等。
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Comments:EnglishFrom Whitfield 1985:When found, this panel was sewn in the form of an oblong cover, folded in half and joined along one edge and the two ends. It is embroidered on a white damask lined with plain white silk, and a selvedge is visible along one edge of both fabrics. The damask itself is in a floral design, although this is hard to see beneath the exuberant scrolling embroidered stems, leaves and flowers which are evenly disposed over the whole surface of the piece, with small ducks in flight between the stems. Apart from their eyes, beaks and wing-patches in silk, the birds are worked solid in plied silk thread rolled with strips of gold-leafed paper, the threads running in pairs and couched with fine silk. The stems, flowers and leaves are edged with a single thread similarly covered in silver-leafed paper, though this has mainly perished.All these edges were applied as the finishing touch to the piece, after stems had been worked in split stitch and the leaves and petals had been filled in with satin stitch. In places where the indigo thread of the stems has been broken, one can still see faint traces of the ink used to outline the design. The use of the silk was very economical: often the stitches on the front are 8 or 9 mm long, and on the back barely 1 mm as the needle returns, splitting the silk, to go forward another long stitch on the front. The scrolling stems are all connected and begin in the middle on the selvedge side. Along the opposite side the design evidently continued, and there is every reason to suppose that it did so over a full width of silk, a width more than twice the present 24 cm. At the top and bottom, the stems and leaves conform with the straight line of the edge, so nothing has been lost there. The form in which it was discovered, as a bag or cover, must the have been a form of re-use, after part of the embroidery had been cut off.Throughout, the work displays the qualities of Tang floral art at its best. In addition to the many variations of colour in the flowers, the leaves are worked in green and indigo to suggest twists and turns. For a denser treatment of the same foliage motif, one might instance the edges of the stele to the Chan Master of Great Wisdom, in the Beilin at Xi’an, which is dated the 24 th year of Kaiyuan (A.D.736). ChineseFrom Whitfield 1985:發現當初，這是將長條布對折，縫合了三面的長方形袋子。白絹做裏子，在白綾上進行刺繡，一端能看到兩片絹的織邊。底子的綾也有花色圖案，被刺繡遮蓋在下邊，無法分辨。刺繡以唐草花紋爲主，配滿了花和葉子，花草叢中有看似鴛鴦的小鳥飛翔。小鳥除眼和嘴外，還有一部分翅膀使用絹絲，其餘全都是兩根並排的撚金葉，並用細絹絲做了固定。莖、花、葉子，脫落的部分也多是用一根銀葉鑲邊。製作程序是先繡好莖，再用孺子繡繡葉子和花瓣，等所有的刺繡結束後再鑲邊。在紺色線刺繡的莖的損壞部分，仍然可以見到淺淺的底稿墨線。絹絲的使用很珍惜：正面常常是繡出8～9毫米長的刺繡針腳，在背面翻回僅有1毫米左右長，再在面上繡下個長針腳的方法。莖的曲線從織邊的中央部位開始，連成一枝。很明顯，此圖案在織邊的對側一面還有延續，可能原來是在比現在的24釐米的寬兩倍左右的整幅絹上進行的刺繡。上端和下端的莖和葉子沒有斷，所以沒有受到損傷。發現時，其形狀像袋子或套子，那可能斷開的是更大的一塊刺繡布料，被再利用而成的。通盤考慮這件刺繡的圖案設計，完全展示了唐代達到最高峰時期的花紋風格。此外其上面的花有各種色彩變化，葉子是用綠色和深紺色表現纏繞或翻轉。同樣稠密的花紋還可舉出有開元二十四年（736年）的西安碑林之《大智禪師碑》的邊飾花紋。 Rawson 1994:All types of textile art flourished during the Tang dynasty (AD 618-906) in China. An important group of Tang textiles has recently been found in excavations at the Famensi at Fufeng, in Shaanxi province; gifts to this monastery evidently included clothing as well as glass, silver and ceramics. Embroidery also continued to be developed and was used for large images of the Buddha built up in satin and chain stitch (BM MAS.0.1129). Most of the textiles found by Aurel Stein at Dunhuang in Gansu province, including banners, altar hangings and monks’ apparel, follow the Buddhist convention of being made up of small cut pieces of different cloth. These ‘patchwork’ items provide an invaluable cross-section of the different types of silk cloth and embroidery available at the time.Trade along the Silk Route was at its most vigorous during the Tang dynasty, and travellers record the bazaars of the Middle East as being full of Chinese patterned cloth and embroideries. Simultaneously we are told that the Tang capital at Chang’an (present-day Xi’an) was populated by large numbers of Iranian craftsmen. A silk weave now known as “weft-faced compound twill” appears among Chinese textiles for a few centuries from about AD 700. This may well have been a technique introduced by foreign weavers, as it seems to have been developed originally in Iran. In the West it was particularly associated with repeating designs of roundels enclosing paired or single animals, with flower heads or rosettes between the roundels (BM MAS.876 and 877). The scroll design with flowers and birds occurs in ceramics and other decorative arts from the Tang dynasty onwards.