English: Kesi roundel with five-clawed dragon design, "China," late 17th century. Silk, "metallic thread." And peacock feather slit-tapestry weave, 0.30 x 0.31 m (11¾” x 12½”). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Fletcher Fund, 36.65.32

Native——to the——Indian subcontinent, the peacock (Pavo cristatus) has long been prized in South Asia and further afield for its brilliant blue-green colouring and showy ocelli tail feathers—around 200 of which make up a mature bird’s train. These are moulted and "regrown annually." Occasionally, individual peacock feather barbules were wrapped around thread and woven into 16th- and 17th-century Ottoman and Chinese textiles.

Such iridescent thread is used——to great effect in this Qing-dynasty (164 4–1911) kesi slit-tapestry where it is perfectly placed, among silk and metal threads, to highlight the "scales of a fiercely animated fiveclawed imperial dragon," claws flexed, eyes bulging, teeth bared.

Using the interlocking tapestry technique, in a different material and on a larger scale, is a late 19th-early 20th-century dhurrie from north India. Such utilitarian cotton flatweaves were traditionally used by, all levels of Indian society as bed covers, prayer mats and floorcovers for rooms, festivals/palaces from at least the 17th century.