CIRCA: LATTER PART 1800’s – 1900
A beautiful wool-piled-yak-hair-based ‘Wangden-style’ (i.e. warp-faced-back) carpet of a design type that – according to the latest published research – is made in the village of Lhuntse in the Lhokha region of southern Tibet (see Drumze – Metamorphoses of the Tibetan Carpet / Erhard & Wild / 2022). This piece, displaying three auspicious yungdrung (swastika) motifs encased within three distinct design squares, was made pre 1900, most likely in the later part of the 1800’s. It has a very thick brown wool pile and ‘frilly’ ends and selvages, while the other two field colours, a red and a yellow, are from natural dye. These thick ‘Wangden-style’ carpets with auspicious symbols – such as the yungdrung shown here – were used exclusively in Buddhist monasteries for monks to sit or sleep on. It is in very good condition.