A rare carpet from the Imperial Palace in Beijing's Forbidden City, hidden from the public eye in the last 34 years, will be auctioned on Tuesday (November 23) in Christie's Paris.

Woven in the Ming dynasty in the 16th century, the square carpet is adorned with two five-clawed dragons and a pearl motif at its centre and would have been placed on a dais, under the Emperor's throne.

"This particular carpet, due to its shape and its decoration, was woven specifically for the emperor's throne," said Louise Broadhurst, oriental carpets expert at Christie's London.

It is estimated at 3.5-4.5 million euros ($3.94-5.06 million) and is one of seven complete imperial dragon throne carpets in private collections. The nine others remain in the Beijing Palace museum.

Christie's said the carpet was originally bought in 1920 by a couple from Iowa who were on honeymoon in China. They loaned it to the Cleveland Museum of Art then sold it in 1987 to a private collector in Switzerland, the current vendor.

Believed to have been red when it was first created in an imperial workshop, the carpet has faded to a golden yellow.

"Private individuals who are looking really for works of art that have very strong provenance, historically important and magnificently beautiful. This has all of those," Broadhurst said.

Most of the treasures from China's imperial heyday are kept in Taiwan's National Palace Museum. They were taken there when defeated Nationalist forces fled to the island at the end of China's civil war in 1949.

Source: Reuters