Oriental Rug Exchange

In HALI 222, our latest issue centred on textiles along the Silk Roads, curator Luk Yu-ping comments on items from the ‘Silk Roads’ exhibition at the British Museum, and traces the history of sericulture and 500 years of contact and exchange:

‘It is now widely understood that silk was only one of many goods, along with people and ideas, that moved in the networks of contact and exchanges that spread across Afro-Eurasia. The British Museum’s major exhibition on the subject presents this expanded vision of the Silk Roads.’

Yu-ping draws attention to this silk embroidery ‘found in Cave 17, a repository hidden in the early 11th century at a vast rock-cut Buddhist cave temple complex in Dunhuang in northwest China.

‘This work, dated to the 8th century, is embroidered with silk on a silk ground, backed with h**p. The embroidery itself uses the split stitch of varying lengths that at places resembles satin stitch, a technique that became widely used from around the mid-Tang dynasty. As such, it may be a record of this transition. Embroidering the Buddha image was considered among believers to be an act of merit-making. A finished image, like this example, could serve as a votive offering and the focus of worship in a shrine.’

The full article can be accessed with a digital subscription to HALI. HALI 222 is now available to buy via the link in our bio.

Image: 'Miraculous Image of Liangzhou' (detail), China, ca. 700–800. British Museum, Stein Collection. Found in Cave 17, Mogao Caves, Dunhuang

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