Canopy with Dragon among Flowers
The tapestry sewn into the center of this canopy depicts dragons among flowers, a classic design in Chinese art. Its weavers paid attention to fine details, such as the color gradation of the dragon’s scales, or subtle color changes in the flower petals and leaves. The selection of colored silk threads is soft in tone but rich in variety. All these stylistic characteristics indicate that this tapestry was woven in an imperial Southern Song workshop in the capital of Hangzhou, a center of textile production in the Jiangnan region.
Colors in this work
Details
- Artist
- Unknown artist
- Date
- 1100s/1400s
- Dimensions
- overall: height 0.87 m, width 0.845 m
- Department
- Textiles
- Holding institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Palette
-
Select a color to find related artworks.
- Image provider
- cleveland-museum-of-art
- License
- CC0-1.0
- Credit
- John L. Severance Fund
Art Genome Taxonomy
12 tags
Subject Matter
-
Hybrids and Imaginary Creatures Both · 99%
Dragons are identified in the museum description and are directly visible among the floral and foliate decoration.
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Flora Both · 99%
The central panel and border are densely filled with flowers, leaves, vines, and scrolling botanical motifs.
Visual Qualities
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Patterns Visual · 98%
Repeated floral motifs cover the blue border, while smaller repeated botanical forms and decorative units organize the red central field.
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Highly Ornamented Visual · 98%
The surface is densely filled with floral, foliate, scrolling, and dragon motifs, leaving little undecorated ground.
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Curvilinear Forms Visual · 96%
The dragon bodies, ribbon-like contours, vines, and scrolling forms are predominantly sinuous and curving.
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Bright and Vivid Colors Visual · 91%
A saturated red central field contrasts with deep blue, green, cream, pink, yellow, and gold-toned accents.
Medium and Techniques
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Use of Traditional Techniques Metadata · 98%
The museum records tapestry weave (kesi) in the center and lampas weave in the border, both established textile techniques.
Time Periods
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Pre-20th Century Art Metadata · 98%
The catalog date range is 1175–1499, placing the work and its component sections before the twentieth century, while recognizing that the object is composite and differently dated by section.
Geographic Regions
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Chinese Art Metadata · 99%
The catalog identifies China as the place of origin, with the center associated with the Southern Song dynasty and the border with the Ming dynasty.
Materials
-
Gold Both · 98%
Gold is specified for both the center and border, and gold-toned details are visibly integrated into the dragons and floral border.
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Natural Fibers Metadata · 99%
Silk is specified for both the central panel and border; silk is a natural fiber, although the fiber itself cannot be independently identified from the image alone.
Textiles
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Textile Arts Both · 99%
The object is cataloged as a textile, and the image clearly shows a large woven fabric panel with a central section and border.
Source & rights
Unknown artist. Canopy with Dragon among Flowers. Cleveland Museum of Art.
High-resolution sources
- Original TIFF ↗ 5,384 × 5,596 · Cleveland Museum Of Art · Available