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Chinese Wool Carpets |
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CHINESE WOOL CARPETS
Large carpets, particularly large wool carpets, were not used in China
until comparatively recent times. Rugs to cover the ‘Kang”
or fire heated brick bed platform typical in North China were not
uncommon at least as early Ming times. These rugs were typically
divided to give a place to set a table on the Kang or designed to cover
the entire Kang. Most of these rugs were made of felt and used
camel hair, which was dyed black and red at the borders. The felt
rugs, some silk and others wool, in the Shoso-in at Nara, Japan are
probably the earliest examples of Chinese carpets and although dating
is questioned may date back to Tang times. |
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The Ming period and far into that of the Ching Dynasty,
woolen rugs for the “Kang”, temple floor mats, prayer rugs and
wollen hangings came from the northern border area of China.
Kansu, Suiyuan, Shensi and Shanxi all provided rugs used in China as
did many distant areas reached over the old Silk Road. The later
areas included Tibet, Mongolia but also areas outside Chinese
control. Northern Shansi, Suiyuan and Ninghsia were all famous
for the quality of their carpets. These rugs were predominantly
made from wool and camel hair, which were both abundant in these
areas. An example of this work, which was also done in Buddhist
designs, is a carpet from Lou Lan in Chinese Turkestan which is made of
wool pile and whose colors still remain bright despite the passage of
time. |
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From historical records, it appears that no wool looms
were in use in Beijing until the very early 1860s. In 1860, a
Buddhist priest named Ho Chi-ching, started a weaving school at Paoku
for the poor of Beijing. This proved successful and the school
divided into a Western gate and Eastern gate schools. Later, the
Western gate school moved to Tientsin where it developed a tradition of
making very durable camel wool carpets decorated with simple
geometrical patterns in red, blue and brown. In the later years
of the 1800s, the quality of the rug making had deteriorated
markedly. The Tientsin wool rug industry collapsed completely
with the fall of the Ching dynasty. In the 1930s the rug industry
was restarted in both Tientsin and Shanghai with the aid of western
capital. In 1949, the tradition was further transplanted to Hong
Kong and other points in Asia where it carries on the tradition through
more modern techniques. |
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