Chinese Art Deco 1688

This vintage hand-knotted Chinese Art Deco rug from the early 20th century is a treasure of the genre — a room-size piece featuring four dragons in each corner set against a soft ivory field, their powerful forms guarding the composition from every direction as they have guarded the homes and palaces of China for millennia. The field is adorned with beautifully detailed scenes of the Chinese countryside: pagodas, birds, rivers, mountains, and traditional symbols of prosperity and good fortune rendered with narrative richness and pictorial charm.

In Chinese culture, the dragon is the supreme symbol of imperial authority, cosmic power, and divine protection — and a rug with four corner dragons bringing their protective energy to every corner of the room is an object of both great beauty and profound symbolic meaning. The dark blue border grounds the composition with quiet authority. Chinese Art Deco rugs, produced primarily in the 1920s and 1930s for the Western export market, represent one of the most distinctive fusions of Eastern and Western aesthetic sensibilities in the history of textile art. Drawing on the clean lines, bold geometry, and refined simplicity of the Western Art Deco movement while incorporating the ancient symbolic vocabulary of Chinese art — dragons, cranes, pagodas, lotus flowers, and auspicious emblems — these rugs created a design language entirely their own that continues to be admired and collected worldwide.

Dimensions: 9' 2" x 11' 5"

Date of Manufacture: 1st Quarter of the 1900s

Place of Origin: China

Material: Wool pile on a cotton foundation

Condition: Wear consistent with age and use

SKU: 1688