CIRCA: 1920’s
A rare and unique pile-less flat-woven Tibetan seating square that has been made using a very interesting and unusual weaving technique with the use of the double dorje at the center suggesting that it was intended for use by a monastic personage. It is made of two ‘layers’ so to speak, that is all what we see on the front appears to have been over-stitched onto a finely woven woollen backing panel. And that backing panel seems to have been made up of several pieces sewn together! Altogether very curious and unusual.
As for the design itself, starting at the center we have a green double dorje surrounded by a two-tone red field (note how the red ‘inside’ the dorje is a darker shade), and then outside the red square the natural brown wool has been woven so as lighter and darker shades of the brown have been intentionally placed so as to make ever increasing squares until reaching the darker inner border. The white threads in the dark inner border are meant to depict pearls, the main border features a meander that is sometimes referred to the ‘running dog’ design, while the red woven narrow outer strip is probably meant to resemble the red covered felt border seen on many Tibetan carpets.
It appears to be either nomadic or rural work and made in the early part of the 1900’s, probably the 1920s, the size 68cm x 69cm and handspun wool has been used for its entire construction, either undyed brown wool for the most part, or coloured wool for the designs and secondary borders, with the few dyes used being primarily natural. All in all it is a rather unique one-of-a-kind flat-woven piece in excellent condition that appears to have been seldom used (as was common with many gifts to monastic personages or officials) and made using a weaving method seldom employed in Tibetan weaving that would certainly suit a collector.
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