Early Ning Xia Tiger Rug

Early Ning Xia Tiger Rug
Size :138 x 72 cm (4’ 6” x 2’ 4”)

Stock No: 2277

China, 18th century or earlier
Condition: good according to age, low pile, scattered small repairs, signs of use at sides and ends
Warp: wool, weft: cotton, pile: wool

Depictions of tiger pelts on carpets and other textiles can be found throughout Asia and extend back at least a couple to thousand years. Early carpets found in the Taklamakan dessert belong to them but we find them on Chinese paintings as well. The earliest non archeological carpets are from the late 17th century and many more from the 19th century are known.
Some show just abstract stripes, others tigers walking among bamboo others are clearly pelts.
Trophies which shows the owner as a powerful man. Marking the backbone is found in examples which just tiger stripes of various forms but is rarer among the pelt rugs.
The accentuation of the leg joints with swirls is found in both groups. This tiger seem well fed and also his facial expression is not very fearsome. The blue snout, the eye brows and the tail are woven in two colours not unlike the ‘pepper and salt’ knotting we find in these rugs but here it is done in rows of blue and white pile. The brown is heavily corroded as it happens often in Kang xi period rugs the white under belly outline preserved the best. Eberhart Herrmann published 1980 in Seltene Orientteppiche III no 122 an example which is in the shape of a pelt dated to the 18th century.
Even though that tiger was slimmer it has a friendly face with a blue nose and his hind leg joints show swirls as well.

Request Information