Posted by: 94stranger | September 8, 2007

art objects 1: Chinese embroidery on silk (antique)

Is anyone out there interested in ethnic art, especially textiles? Please enjoy, and let me in on anything you know that I more than likely don’t!

I’ll try to post a new piece from time to time on a more or less regular basis. (Next follows shortly, as per time required to read 147,503 pages of instructions for my new camera, and absorb the absolutely indispensible 0.0001 per cent of them - such as: ’if this product is fed to  a pet alligator, care should first be taken to install a powdered-glass-impregnated carrying strap of not less then 1.25 metres in length.’  

The first is embroidery on silk, Chinese, and I think late 19C or early 20C

This threatens to be the start of a long campaign to figure out how best to produce images for the blog - I’m no kind of camera buff. I hope the second photo, below, improves on the first -except in the time it takes to load.

chinese-embroidery-2.jpg

P.S I’m posting this in the photography section: it was taken using a Nikon Coolpix L10, and if anyone has any suggestions, please don’t hesitate!

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

Posted in China, antiques, art, art-objects, ethnic, photography, textiles

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Responses

This looks gorgeous. Can you reduce the size of the jpg, stranger? Clicking on it is a bit like sitting in the front row of the movie theater. If you can reduce it, we might be able to appreciate it even more because we’ll see it in its entirety.

Where do you make your purchases? Local textile dealers, or do you go to the markets in Shanghai?

By: ybonesy on September 2, 2007
at 2:44 pm

yb
thanks for the above. Camera kaput, but will try to sort tomorrow.
The answer to where do I buy? is any local dealer that I can find during my sniffing around expeditions. We live an a curiously poor part of a rich part of England, and local prices are renowned for being low.
That’s not the whole story though - about 200 metres from my front door is an ethnic shop run by a very singular character, who breaks all the rules in the book. His speciality is things with some degree of damage - this is a case in point. The Chinese silk was from him and has some peripheral damage, as you will see if I get my camera sorted. The price, however, was not damaging - It was either $16 or $20 - £8-10, which is complete madness, obviously.
I’ll post about this guy - Roger - when I have a moment

By: 94stranger on September 3, 2007
at 9:07 pm

yb -
is this better? I had an adventure with the camera - it (or, quite possibly me) was malfunctioning, so I took it back to Argos (does the US of A have Argos?) and they said, [Cue Cockney accent ‘Oh, we don’t do them nomore, dearie, so it can’t be sent back for repair, so you can ‘ave a gift voucher for the amount, or yer money back, if yer bring the USB lead, the disc ‘n all’…
back home, collect relevant items, return to the shop in triumph and, adding £10, buy a new camera. So, instead of a Scimitar - made in Kodakistan, or some similar ex-Russian republic where the camel traders rode out of the desert into factories last Wednesday and now produce cameras at less than the price of a cup of tea, I know have a nikon, made in Japan (well, actually, in China - the Japanese are not THAT stupid - but in factories patrolled by men in long skirts twirling samurai swords, and ready at the drop of a cherry blossom to remove heads should the imperial honour be bismirched by some unfortunate Cantonese peasant… enough. All I have to do now is to learn to use the frigging thing - and I know how to do that. My previous approach - press all the buttons and see what happens - has clearly been proved camera-averse, so now I’m taking the graduate option and reading my way through the precious little machine. Wish me joy!
(Roger later, I promise)

By: 94stranger on September 4, 2007
at 11:58 pm

Roger 1-10. It is better. I can see the whole thing. I am worried, however, that you are going to use up all your WP allotted space for photos, and given that this is still loading slowly, it must still be a big file. Do you have Paint? Most computers come with it preloaded. You can take a print-screen of your photo, put it into paint, cut and paste the photo (to get rid of all the rest of the stuff in your screenshot), then resave as a jpg file. The size will be tiny. It will load quickly and not cause you to have to buy more space from WP.

Anyway, loved the accent. 10-4, over and out.

By: ybonesy on September 5, 2007
at 7:57 pm

Hi yb, I liked your pun on Roger.
I’ve just uploaded 2 more images and bingo, 12% of my allowance has gone. So I’m going to study your method, for which thanks, and work something out.
Take care.

P.S.Do you have a verb ‘to roger’ Stateside - or is that quintessentially British?
P.P.S. haven’t viewed Madge yet, but will ASAP, and thanks for the cultural evangelism!

By: 94stranger on September 5, 2007
at 10:50 pm

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