a very old Chinese carpet made in either the Ningxia or Beijing region in the 1700's / 18th century. The design in the golden-yellow center field is elegantly fashioned and features eight lotus flowers on trellis-like leafy vines while the main border features ancient foliate dragons with only their heads recognisable as such, their bodies remain 'geometric' in shape. It is missing a small amount of the carpet's woven pile border at either end and it has several very old repairs and some holes (as can be seen in some of the photos). It came out of Tibet in the 1960's hence the blue heavy cloth edging (as is seen on many carpets from Tibet, or used by Tibetans). There is a stabilising strip of thick felt under that blue cloth border at both ends, whereas the blue overlapping cloth border along the sides is just covering the original corroded brown wool pile border of the carpet itself - i.e. there is no felt underlay along the sides; the blue border having been put there one must assume just to give the carpet an all-round 'symmetry' as it were. The size is 203cm x 123cm, all the colours are from natural dyes and both the warp and weft are hand-spun cotton. a genuinely old collectable Chinese carpet that overall is in quite reasonable condition for its age. For more photos please see https://warpandweft.club/portfolio-item/ningxia-17/