Shop drop time! This week's restock set is live now~
We're featuring plenty of guest artist designs this time, including a ton from @vetiverfox along with one each from @fleebites and @themikeydeano. Be sure stop by the shop and check out the full restock, because there's sooo many fun dark gothic accessories to find over there as well 🦇
🖤 witchvamp.com 🖤
(PS: shares are always super appreciated!! we've been struggling a little with reach lately and it helps more than you know! thanks, everyone)
Luxury bookbinding integrates leather and fabric. La statuaire polychrome en Espagne. 1908.
A crimson morocco leather frame with elaborate gilt tooling creates a lavish window revealing a panel of woven brocade: gold floral scrollwork on olive ground laced with roses. Open the book and the frame disappears. A characteristic example of French luxury publisher's binding of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Patterns: Warring states / Han / Jin- excerpt from ''Ornamental Patterns From Ancient Chinese Textiles Han to Tang Dynasties" by Zhao Feng
Detailed information under cut.
warning: this is machine translated notes from the pages above. Any corrections are more than welcome. Notes are numbered as per pages above
Dancing Figures and Animal Motifs
Warring States Period: Brocade with Dancing Figures and Animal Motifs
Unearthed in Jiangling, Hubei Province
Collection of Jingzhou Museum
This fabric is a plain-weave warp brocade from the Warring States period, unearthed in 1982 from Chu Tomb No. 1 at Mashan, Jiangling, Hubei Province. The main pattern is dancing figures and animal motifs, with a warp repeat of approximately 5.5 cm and a weft spanning the entire width. The unit pattern consists of a zigzag skeleton formed by left-right slanted rectangles, with double dragons and geometric patterns filling the rectangles. The space outside the rectangles is filled with eight sets of patterns: four pairs of dragons, two pairs of phoenixes, one pair of qilin, and most strikingly, a pair of dancing figures wearing crowns with drooping tails, long robes, and belts, gracefully dancing with flowing sleeves.
The pair of dragons at the far left of the fabric has a clear weaving error; the rectangle and the dragon's tail are broken. This error is repeated throughout all the pattern repeats, indicating that the error occurred during the weaving of the pattern book before weaving, making it impossible to correct during the weaving process. This, from another perspective, confirms that Chinese silk weaving technology at that time did indeed possess jacquard devices to control the repetition of patterns on fabric, but it could not yet control the weft repeat, resulting in a lack of weft repeat across the entire width of the fabric.
Zhao Feng. Treasures of Textile Embroidery: An Illustrated History of Chinese Silk Art. Hong Kong: Art Silk House Fashion Publishing, 1999: 59-60.
2.Auspicious Birds and beasts
Warring States Period: Brocade with Auspicious Birds and Beasts Pattern
Collection of the Cotsen Foundation
These two fabrics are plain-weave warp brocades. After reconstructing the patterns, the main motifs can be seen as two pairs of auspicious birds and beasts: one pair with dragon heads and phoenix bodies; the other pair with bird heads and beast bodies, which, judging from the spots, may be leopard bodies. In addition, there are other patterns interspersed throughout, such as the sun, stars, and rhombus cup patterns.
Zhao, Feng. Early Chinese Textiles from the Lloyd Cotsen Collection. Los Angeles: Cotsen Occasional Press, 2015: 6-7.
3.Phoenix and Dragon pattern.
Warring States Period: Brocade with Pairs of Dragons and Phoenixes
Collection of the Cotsen Foundation
This is a typical plain-weave brocade from the Warring States period, featuring a pattern of paired dragons, paired phoenixes, and some geometric patterns. The pattern is three-colored, with light brown and red sections highlighting the floral designs on a dark brown background. The red is dyed with cinnabar, forming vibrant banded decorations on the fabric surface. This brocade is very similar to the brocade with paired dragons and phoenixes unearthed from Tomb No. 44 at Zuojiatang, Changsha City, Hunan Province in 1957.
Zhao, Feng. Early Chinese Textiles from the Lloyd Cotsen Collection. Los Angeles: Cotsen Occasional Press, 2015: 1.
4.Intertwined Dragons and Phoenixes
Warring States Period: Intertwined Dragons and Phoenixes Brocade
Collection of the Cotsen Foundation
This is a two-tone plain weave brocade, with dark brown patterns on a light brown ground. The pattern features intertwined dragons at the top and intertwined phoenixes at the bottom.
A similar dragon and phoenix pattern can also be seen on a light yellow silk embroidery unearthed from Chu Tomb No. 1 at Mashan, Jiangling, Hubei.
Zhao, Feng. Early Chinese Textiles from the Lloyd Cotsen Collection. Los Angeles: Cotsen Occasional Press, 2015: 5.
5. Diamond-patterned Deer Design
Warring States Period: Diamond-patterned Deer Design Gauze
Unearthed from a Chu Tomb in Wufu Village, Anji, Zhejiang Province
Collection of the China National Silk Museum
This diamond-patterned gauze is a dark-patterned gauze fabric. The pattern is created using a two-warp twist weave on a four-warp ground, resulting in a striking and unique effect. Between the diamond patterns is an animal motif, with four legs and two large antlers on its head, possibly a deer. Above this animal is a tree-shaped pattern, robust at the base and with five branches, evoking a sense of forest and spring. It is noteworthy that the original design of this fabric was symmetrical, but mis-weave occurs at the tips of the diamonds.
Zhao Feng. Silks of the Silk Road: Origin, Spread, and Exchange. Hangzhou: Zhejiang University Press, 2015: 166.
6. Cloud and Animal Pattern
Han-Jin Dynasty: Brocade Armguard with the inscription "Five Stars Rise in the East, Benefiting China" (??)
Unearthed in Niya, Minfeng County, Xinjiang Collection of Xinjiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology
This brocade is a five-color plain-weave warp brocade, with red, yellow, blue, green, and white warp threads forming the pattern. The overall pattern uses mountain-shaped clouds as a framework, continuously unfolding along the weft direction. From the right side, there are birds, unicorns, and tigers, interspersed with the inscription "Five Stars Rise in the East, Benefiting China." Another fragment from the same tomb can be identified as belonging to the same fabric, bearing cloud patterns, winged figures, star patterns, and the inscription "Exterminate the Southern Qiang." After reconstruction, it can be read as "Five Stars Rise in the East, Benefiting China, Exterminate the Southern Qiang." Through the reconstruction of the "Five Stars" brocade pattern, five dots representing different colors of the five stars can be seen on the fabric. The term "five stars" is used in astronomical astrology and is related to the Five Elements theory of the Han Dynasty. The Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji) records, "The five stars divide the sky in the center, accumulating in the east, benefiting China…" Yu Zhiyong.
A Preliminary Study on Han and Jin Dynasty Inscribed Brocades Unearthed in the Loulan-Niya Area. Chinese Historical Relics, 2003(6):38-48,85-95.
7. "Peace and Happiness Embroidered Pattern, Greatly Benefiting Descendants" Cloud and Animal Motif (??)
Southern Han Dynasty to Jin Dynasty: "Peace and Happiness Embroidered Pattern, Greatly Benefiting Descendants" Brocade
Unearthed in Niya, Minfeng County, Xinjiang
Collection of Xinjiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology
This brocade was used to sew the hem of a brown robe. It is a typical Han Dynasty brocade, featuring cloud and animal motifs as its main design. At the time, it was also called the "Cloud and Animal Pattern." The cloud pattern serves as the framework of the design, interspersed with dragons, tigers, leopards, birds, humans, and the Chinese inscription "Peace and Happiness Embroidered Pattern, Greatly Benefiting Descendants." The figure in the design holds a weapon and rides on the back of a dragon. The inscription is arranged from right to left across the entire piece.
"May You Have Abundant Wishes for Ten Thousand Generations" Cloud Pattern
Han-Jin Dynasty: "May You Have Abundant Wishes for Ten Thousand Generations" Brocade
Unearthed in Niya, Minfeng County, Xinjiang
Collection of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Museum.
This brocade has a crimson ground with five warp threads of crimson, white, sky blue, deep purple, and dark green. The pattern consists of parallel, differently shaped spiral cloud patterns, with the four characters "May You Have Abundant Wishes for Ten Thousand Generations" woven in clerical script in the center.
Jin Weinuo, Zhao Feng. Complete Collection of Chinese Art: Textiles. Hefei: Huangshan Publishing House, 2010: 59.
"China Prospers, the Four Barbarians Subdue, the Southern Qiang Exterminated" Cloud and Animal Pattern
Han Dynasty: "China Prospers, the Four Barbarians Subdue, the Southern Qiang Exterminated" Brocade
Collection of the Cotsen Foundation
This is a typical Han Dynasty five-color brocade, with red, green, yellow, and white patterns on a deep blue ground. The pattern is a cloud and animal pattern, interspersed with tigers, qilin, winged deer, feathered humans, and geese within the cloud and animal framework. The pattern is symmetrical, but the Chinese inscription "China Prospers, the Four Barbarians Subdue, the Southern Qiang Exterminated, Peace and Prosperity, Heaven Without Boundaries" is arranged from right to left throughout the entire piece.
Zhao, Feng. Early Chinese Textiles from the Lloyd Cotsen Collection. Los Angeles: Cotsen Occasional Press, 2015: 15.
10 "May the King and Nobleman Enjoy a Thousand Years of Marriage and Prosperity for Their Descendants" Cloud Pattern
Han-Jin Dynasty: "May the King and Nobleman Enjoy a Thousand Years of Marriage and Prosperity for Their Descendants" Brocade Quilt
Unearthed in Niya, Minfeng, Xinjiang
Collection of Xinjiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology.
This brocade was originally used to make a quilt. It is a five-color plain weave brocade with four colors—crimson, white, yellow, and green—on a dark blue ground, with yellow and green highlighted separately. The pattern consists of a cloud pattern framework interspersed with the Chinese characters "May the King and Nobleman Enjoy a Thousand Years of Marriage and Prosperity for Their Descendants." According to research, this brocade was made by a state-run silk weaving workshop in the Central Plains specifically for the weddings of local kings and nobles. Therefore, it is speculated that the owner of the quilt was a king of the Jingjue Kingdom.
Zhao Feng, Yu Zhiyong. The Desert Prince's Treasures: Cultural Relics Unearthed from the Niya Site on the Silk Road. Hong Kong: Yishatang/Fashion Publishing, 2000: 72-73.
