A LARGE 'NINE YANG DISPERSING THE COLD' INSCRIBED KESI PANEL 20th centuryA LARGE 'NINE YANG DISPERSING THE COLD' INSCRIBED KESI PANEL20th centuryThe panel of rectangular shape, finely woven with three joyful boys playing with nine sheep, each figure elegantly dressed in fur-trimmed hats and robes, set in a luxuriant garden dotted flowering prunus and colourful shrubs of blossoming flowers and pine trees, all on a sapphire-blue ground, the upper part with a calligraphic inscription.226cm (89in) long x 106cm (41 6/8in) wide.二十世紀 緙絲九陽消寒圖Provenance: a Swiss private collection來源：瑞士私人收藏Elegantly woven in black silk, the present panel is based on the famous 'Nine Yang Dispersing the Cold', a famous kesi embroidery produced during the Qianlong period, in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing. The scene is remarkable for its vivid imagery and well-preserved colour. The popular design of boys riding goats is associated with the arrival of spring, and with it, the new year, Winter Solstice, conveyed by the character yang for ram being a homonym for sun, which also represents the male principle thus investing the word with connotations of new life and fertility. The Winter Solstice marked the rebirth of the sun and the beginning of the yang (male) half of the year, and the prunus and camellia flowers, some of the first Spring blossoms, herald the end of winter.The poem inscribed on the upper part was originally written by the Qianlong emperor in 1781 (the forty-sixth year of his reign). It describes the auspicious meaning of the nine sheep representing the nine yang as the reason for traditional pictures of 'Nine Nines Dispersing the Cold' Jiujiu Xiaohan Tu, graphic representations of the eighty-one days of winter). He also presents the three playful boys as symbolising a peaceful start of the new spring. Praising the creativity and exquisiteness of the original Song-dynasty work, after which the Qianlong kesi was in turn modelled on, the emperor expresses respect for the contemporary artisans of Suzhou and their delicate recreation while betraying some regret that it lacked novelty.For the kesi 'Nine Yang Dispersing the Cold', dating to the Qianlong period, see J.Rawson, 'The Auspicious Universe', in E.Rawski and J.Rawson, China The Three Emperors, London, 2006, p.376, fig.297.