A PAIR OF NINGXIA PILLAR RUGS DEPICTING THE MONK THINLAY BULLO, NORTH CHINA, CIRCA 1900-1930

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A PAIR OF NINGXIA PILLAR RUGS DEPICTING THE MONK THINLAY BULLO, NORTH CHINA, CIRCA 1900-1930 Inscriptions: To each carpet, inscribed in Uchen script ‘dge slong prin las bul lo’ [‘The monk Thinlay Bullo’]. Expert’s note In the diary of a Jesuit priest, Father Gerbillon, it is recorded that the Kangxi Emperor visited Ningxia in 1697 and was presented with several locally made carpets which he took back with him to the Empress. With Imperial interest in the Ningxia carpets and their designs being closely related to court styles of the Ming period, their appeal increased throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Ancestor portraits are significant in contributing dates to styles of carpets. In these portraits, the carpets are often visible at the edges of the thrones. The Chinese production of wool carpets and rugs spanned over several centuries and they do not appear to have been exported to Europe in the first quarter of the eighteenth century which was the height of the Chinoiserie fashion. It was only at the beginning of the twentieth century that the West became aware of Chinese carpets, largely through the dealers at the time which included Larkin & Kemp in London, and Yamanaka, Tiffany, Dilley, and others in New York. Their interest to the present market is their understated elegance and balanced composition with their reduced and subtle range of colors. Each hand-knotted and woven in wool in tones of blue, orange, white, and brown, depicting a Lamaist monk blowing a conch shell horn, standing amid a maize-yellow ground scattered with the Eight Buddhist Emblems and scrolling clouds. The upper register is arranged in horizontal bands, beginning with a geometric key-fret border, followed by a dark band of evenly spaced roundels suspending a broad band of elongated looped motifs, from which descend festooned strings of beads arranged in scallops and terminating in lotus-form tassels. The beaded swags are punctuated by lamps and smaller pendent ornaments, creating the effect of a richly decorated ceremonial canopy. The lower register is formed by a broad lishui border, with stylized mountain peaks rising above rhythmic bands of multicolored waves, all punctuated by cloud scrolls, creating a highly schematic cosmic landscape typical of Qing-period textile decoration. (2) Dimensions: Size 220 x 78 cm (each) Auction result comparison: Type: Closely related Auction: Christie’s Hong Kong, 29 November 2005, lot 1607 Price: HKD 168,000 or approx. EUR 24,000 (for one) converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing Expert remark: Compare the closely related motif and design. Note the much larger size (403 x 300 cm) and that the present lot is modelled as a pair. Auction result comparison: Type: Closely related Auction: Bonhams Los Angeles, 5 December 2023, lot 90 Price: USD 3,584 or approx. EUR 3,500 (for one) converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing Expert remark: Compare the closely related motif and design. Note the size (225.5 x 113 cm) and that unlike the present lot, this result is for a single rug only.

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