Date：2022-12-17 - 2023-01-01
Location：No.3 Exhibition Hall, 4F
Kesi was invented on the basis of ke, or tapestry weaving, a technique characterized by slit-tapestry. The craftsmanship was introduced to the Central Plains of China via the ancient Silk Road. Due to the daunting amount of time and labor for making them, the kesi works were said to have been as valuable as gold and therefore unaffordable to common people. Under the influence of royal-court painting, which was greatly admired by the emperor Huizong of Song, the kesi craftsmen drew on the Tang pattern-weaving techniques of flat tapestry weaving and outline tapestry weaving and turned to various inlay techniques, which help to better visualize the mood and motif of paintings. Hence a number of renowned artists, noticeably Zhu Kerou, and schools of kesi. Zhu incorporated the art of royal-court painting into her craftsmanship by taking delicate threads of blended colors as palettes and employing the method of "long-and-short-thread inlay" as ink-wash brushes, thus creating an exquisite effect of color blending that proves to be true to nature. This unique technique has thus been named after her. Ducklings on a Lotus Pond, a work by Zhu now in the collection of the Shanghai Museum, is the paramount piece of flower-and-bird kesi tapestry of the Song dynasty. It was formerly in the collection of Pang Laichen. Pang Weijin and some other descendants of Laichen gave it, along with five kesi paintings and calligraphic works of the Ming and Qing dynasties in 1952 as a gift, with a note saying, "Such priceless treasures in the world ought not to belong to private collectors like us. Rather, they shall be donated to our nation and admired by our people, immediately." The generosity of the Pang family has enabled the public to appreciate this national treasure and facilitated there search on and inheritance of Zhu's kesi technique.
Indeed, Ducklings on a Lotus Pond, the tour de force of kesi, was made possible by a gorgeous tapestry of a weaving technique from the Western Regions, the Chinese art of silk, the regional prosperity of Jiangnan, or the Yangtze Delta, and the elegance and exquisiteness of traditional Chinese painting. In celebration of the seventieth anniversary of its own founding, the Shanghai Museum hereby presents with pride this long-enshrined treasure to public admiration. We hope to unveil its millennium-old beauty and splendor to all the lovers of Chinese art, and more importantly, not only to promote the legendary craftsmanship of kesi but also to accelerate its renaissance, which is long overdue.
