TYPE: A Bhutanese Chaksi Pankhep
CIRCA: 1800’s / 19th C.
An exemplary ceremonial hand-towel or lap cover (Chaksi Pankhep) originally used only by the nobility in Bhutan. (Literally translated chaksi means ‘hand wash’ and pankhep means ‘lap cover’ in the Bhutanese language.) Woven in the 1800’s / 19th century it is comprised of three individual hand woven panels that are then hand stitched together and the elaborate over-stitched design woven on to make up the finished piece. The central horizontally designed panel is the widest with the design woven on in a complementary-weft-faced weave (see close-up image bottom row right), while either side of it are narrower vertical panels, each being approximately half the size of the central panel.
A great deal of work has gone into these two panels with each made up of five vertical design stripes which have been woven in an alternating weave format, that is the stripes alternate in the type of weave used in each stripe. That is, going from the edge stripe inwards they are woven in the following order; complementary-warp-faced weave: complementary-weft-faced weave: complementary-warp-faced weave: complementary-weft-faced weave: and finally complementary-warp-faced weave (right before the join to the center piece). This variation of the design weave can be seen in the example bottom row left which shows just three of the five stripes (note the vertical warp threads in the design of the two stripes using the complementary-warp-faced weave, and the horizontal weft threads in the design of the single stripe using the complimentary-weft-faced weave) .
The plain-weave base cloth itself is finely hand woven (55-60 warp threads per linear inch) and the bottom row center image above shows an area of that cloth with a diameter of just 8.5cm x 8.5cm (1/3rd of an inch). The design is made of hand-spun wild raw silk and consists of just two colours; red and dark blue (as is the norm for pre-1900 pieces), with both colours from natural dyes. The size is 99cm x 279 cm with fringes on either end of approximately 18cm each. An heirloom piece of museum quality, and in excellent condition, it has been in the ones collectors hands since being purchased in Nepal in the early 1970’s. It is a highly collectable piece. [For similar published examples see page 66, 67 and 68 in the book Thunder Dragon Textiles From Bhutan by Mark Bartholomew (1985); and pages 75 and 134 in the book From The Land Of The Thunder Dragon by Diana K Myers and Susan S Bean (1994)]