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Valance - The Stein Collection

The Stein Collection

  • Object:

    Valance

  • Place of origin:

    Dunhuang, China (discovered)

  • Date:

    7th century to 9th century (made)

  • Artist/Maker:

    unknown (production)

  • Materials and Techniques:

    Pattern and plain silk, and gauze woven silk

  • Credit Line:

    Stein Textile Loan Collection. On loan from the Government of India and the Archaeological Survey of India. Copyright: Government of India.

  • Museum number:

    LOAN:STEIN.622:1 to 6

  • Gallery location:

    In store

  • Image in copyright

This silk textile, including five silk streamers that have become detached from the main body, once formed part of a Buddhist altar valance. Altar valances like this one were once commonplace in Buddhist temples yet very few have survived. It was recovered from Cave 17 of the Mogao Grottoes. This shrine site is one of China’s great Buddhist pilgrimage complexes and is situated near the oasis town of Dunhuang.
The site is also part of an area now referred to as the Silk Road, a series of overland trade routes that crossed Asia, from China to Europe. The most notable item traded was silk. Camels and horses were used as pack animals and merchants passed their goods from oasis to oasis. The Silk Road was also important for the exchange of ideas – while silk textiles travelled west from China, Buddhism entered China from India in this way.
This object was brought back from Central Asia by the explorer and archaeologist Sir Marc Aurel Stein (1862–1943). The Victoria and Albert Museum has around 600 ancient and medieval textiles recovered by Stein at the beginning of the twentieth century. The textiles range in date from the second century BC to the twelfth century AD. Some are silk while others are made from the wool of a variety of different animals.

Physical description

Six valance pieces. The first is from the main part of valance, consisting of a border of bi-coloured patterned weave green and orange silk, showing floral design, and backed with monochrome plain weave brown silk. There are the remains of monochrome patterned weave orange silk edging stitched to the border. Hanging from the border is a silk streamer with patterned and plain weave silk tabs of various colours and backed with monochrome plain weave orange silk, a length of monochrome gauze weave brown silk knotted into a rosette, several triangular pieces of patterned and plain weave silk in various colours and a large panel of monochrome plain weave brown silk with selvedge. The other five pieces are streamers with patterned and plain weave silk tabs of various colours which have become deatched from the above.

Weave structures:
1. Silk in plain weave
Warp: silk, single, brown, 50 warps/cm; Weft: silk, single, brown, 33 wefts/cm. Weave structure: 1/1 plain weave
2. Jin silk in twill with medallions
Warp: silk, beige, orange, brown, blue and green, 40 groups/cm; Main weft: silk, single, dark yellowish green, 16 wefts/cm; Binding weft: silk, single, dark yellowih green, 16 wefts/cm. Weave structure: 1:3, 2/1S warp faced compound twill (partly 1:1 or 1:2 warp faced compound twill)
3. Jin silk in twill with medallions
Warp: silk, blue and yellow, 28 groups/cm; Main weft: silk, single, brown, 8 wefts/cm; Binding weft: silk, single, brown, 8 wefts/cm. Weave structure: 2/1Z warp faced compound twill
4. Silk in plain weave
Warp: silk, single, purple, 17 warps/cm; Weft: silk, single, purple, 15 wefts/cm. Weave structure: 1/1 plain weave
5. Silk in plain weave
Warp: silk, single, undyed, 51 warps/cm; Weft: silk, single, undyed, 25 wefts/cm. Weave structure: 1/1 plain weave
6. Gauze
Warp: silk, single, light brown, uncountable; Weft: silk, single, light brown, uncountable. Weave structure: 4-end complex gauze
7. Damask on plain weave
Warp: silk single, orange, 65 warps/cm; Weft: silk, single, orange, 40 wefts/cm. Weave structure: 4-2 patterning weave for pattern on 1/1 plain weave for foundation
8. Damask on plain weave
Warp: silk single, dark blue, 46 warps/cm; Weft: silk, single, dark blue, 29 wefts/cm. Weave structure: 4-2 patterning weave for pattern on 1/1 plain weave for foundation
9. Damasl on plain weave
Warp: silk, single, green, 46 warps/cm; Weft: silk, single, green, 26 wefts/cm. Weave structure: 2-2 patterning weave for pattern on 1/1 plain weave for foundation
10. Damask on plain weave (same as 7)
11. Silk in plain weave
Warp: silk, single, green, 45 warps/cm; Weft: silk, single, green, 29 wefts/cm. Weave structure: 1/1 plain weave
12. Silk in plain weave
Warp: silk, single, yellow, 28 warps/cm; Weft: silk, single, yellow, 21 wefts/cm. Weave structure: 1/1 plain weave
13. Gauze
Warp: silk, single, dark brown, 59 warps/cm; Weft: silk, single, dark brown, 22 wefts/cm. Weave structure: 4-end complex gauze
14. Damask on plain weave (same as 7)
15. Gauze
Warp: silk single, brownish red, 63 warps/cm; Weft: silk, single, brownish red, 16 wefts/cm. Weave structure: 4-end complex gauze
16. Silk in plain weave
Warp: silk, single, white, 51 warps/cm; Weft: silk, single, white, 31 wefts/cm. Weave structure: 1/1 plain weave
17. Silk in plain weave
Warp: silk single, white, 28 warps/cm; Weft: silk, single, white, 21 wefts/cm. Weave structure: 1/1 plain weave
18. Silk in plain weave
Warp: silk, single, green, 34 warps/cm; Weft: silk, single, green, 28 wefts/cm. Weave structure: 1/1 plain weave
19. Silk in plain weave
Warp: silk, single, faded red, 35 warps/cm; Weft: silk, single, faded red, 29 wefts/cm. Weave structure: 1/1 plain weave
20. Silk in plain weave (same as 17)
21. Silk in plain weave with four-petalled rosettes
Warp: silk, single, undyed, 39 warps/cm; Weft: silk, single, undyed, 34 wefts/cm. Weave structure: 1/1 plain weave
22. Damask on plain weave
Warp: silk, single, blue, 51 warps/cm; Weft: silk, single, blue, 33 wefts/cm. Weave structure: 2-2 patterning weave for pattern on 1/1 plain weave for foundation
23. Silk in plain weave
Warp: silk, single, cream, 34 warps/cm; Weft: silk, single, cream, 24 wefts/cm. Weave structure: 1/1 plain weave

Place of Origin

Dunhuang, China (discovered)

Date

7th century to 9th century (made)

Artist/maker

unknown (production)

Materials and Techniques

Pattern and plain silk, and gauze woven silk

Dimensions

Length: 179 cm largest piece, Width: 51.3 cm largest piece

Historical context note

Dunhuang is at the eastern end of the southern Silk Road, in present-day Gansu Province. It lies between the western reaches of China and the Tarim Basin. When China began to expand into Central Asia during the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD), Dunhuang served as a base for military operations and trade. In the succeeding centuries, Buddhist shrines were established southeast of Dunhuang in a series of man-made caves called Qianfodong, "Caves of the Thousand Buddhas" (today also known as the Mogao Grottoes). Here spectacular cave temples were cut out of the cliffs, beginning in the fourth century AD. Over a period of several centuries, communities of Buddhist monks filled the caves with splendid sculpture and wall paintings. These included colossal Buddha statues, painted clay sculptures of deities, elaborate murals of Buddhist legends, and thousands of tiny painted Buddha images; all of which gave the site its name, Qianfodong. Buddhist cave temples had first been established in at Bamiyan (Afghanistan) and Gandhara (formerly in India, now Pakistan). At Qianfodong, Stein found paintings of graceful figures in the Gandharan style among landscapes and buildings that were distinctly Chinese; a fusion of Indian and Chinese art, which he had noted elsewhere along the Silk Road.

In 1900, a Daoist monk named Wang Yuanlu discovered a secret cave at Qianfodung, which contained thousands of documents and paintings. Stein purchased a significant amount of this material from Wang during his visit to the Dunhuang in 1907. Among the many religious works were Buddhist, Jewish, Nestorian, Daoist and Confucian texts; all of which dated from approximately 400 to 1000 A.D. Numerous languages were represented as well, including Chinese, Sanskrit, Tibetan and Hebrew. Stein also acquired many textile pieces. Most of these were silk, for Dunhuang lay on the main trade route between silk-growing regions of China and Central Asia. Elaborate embroideries depicted Buddhist legends and processions of donors. Patterned silks included Chinese and Sassanian (Persian) designs. From China came floral and geometric patterns, combined with figures of animals and birds. Sassanian motifs included pairs of confronted ducks, lions, and other beasts, combined with medallions and quatrefoils. Stein also found undecorated silks used as processional banners and valances for decorating bases of statues. The cave was sealed soon after 1000 A.D., apparently to protect the contents from invading armies. The V&A holds, on loan, a large number of textiles from Dunhuang, including plain and pattern woven silks in many colours, painted Buddhist banners and canopies, and wrappers for Buddhist texts.

Descriptive line

Six silk pieces; main valance and five unattached streamers.

Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)

King, Donald. 'Some notes on warp-faced compound weaves', Bulletin du CIETA. Lyon: Centre International d'étude des Textiles Anciens, 1968, pp. 9-19.
Stein, Aurel, Serindia: Detailed Report of Exploration in Central Asia and Westernmost China Carried Out and Described Under the Orders of H.M Indian Government , 5 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921), II, p.985-6.
Zhao Feng, ed. Textiles from Dunhuang in UK Collections. Shanghai: Donghua University Press, 2007. pp. 300/301.

Associated names

Stein, Marc Aurel (Sir)

Production Note

Found in Cave 17 of the Mogao Grottoes (Caves of the Thousand Buddhas).

Materials

Silk

Techniques

Plain weave; Patterned weave; Gauze weave

Subjects depicted

Floral patterns

Categories

Archaeology; Textiles; Buddhism

Collection code

FEC

Qr_O91259
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