A GROUP OF EMBROIDERED SILK CIVIL BADGES OF RANK

Details

A GROUP OF EMBROIDERED SILK CIVIL BADGES OF RANK
19TH CENTURY

Comprising: a single fifth rank silver pheasant badge, worked entirely in Peking knot amidst bats and Buddhist emblems; a single sixth rank egret badge, also worked in Peking knot within gold outline; a single first rank crane badge, worked in Peking knot against a dense gold-couched ground; and an unusual pair of sixth rank egret badges, elaborately worked in dense couched gold and colored threads, the bird and some of the symbols in padded relief, within a wide border of stylized key pattern and fruiting gourd vine
All approx. 11½in. (29.2cm.) across (5)

Further details

See illustration of one

Lot Essay

The technique and design of the first badge is similar to a badge made for a ninth-rank civil official, displaying the paradise flycatcher, illustrated by Gary Dickinson and Linda Wrigglesworth, Imperial Wardrobe, London, 1990, p. 133, pl. 116. See, also, the example sold in these rooms, September 21/22, 1995, lot 537