Lot Essay
This robe is similar in format to a robe in the University of Oregon Museum of Art, illustrated by John E. Vollmer, Decoding Dragons: Status Garments in Ch'ing Dynasty China, 1983, p. 47, pl. 11
Details
AN EMBROIDERED RED-GROUND SILK DAOIST ROBE
LATE 19TH CENTURY
Elaborately worked on the back in satin stitch and couched gold threads with contorted dragons enclosed in hexafoil panels amidst cranes and bats surrounding the central pagoda medallion encircled by twenty-four sun medallions, above the five Daoist talismanic insignia, the moon and sun symbols flanking three pagoda insignias reserved on a dense ground of couched gold scroll against bright red silk, within wide black borders at the front and back embroidered with water dragons, various animals, trigrams and beribboned precious objects, all picked out in brightly colored threads--66½in. (174cm.) across
LATE 19TH CENTURY
Elaborately worked on the back in satin stitch and couched gold threads with contorted dragons enclosed in hexafoil panels amidst cranes and bats surrounding the central pagoda medallion encircled by twenty-four sun medallions, above the five Daoist talismanic insignia, the moon and sun symbols flanking three pagoda insignias reserved on a dense ground of couched gold scroll against bright red silk, within wide black borders at the front and back embroidered with water dragons, various animals, trigrams and beribboned precious objects, all picked out in brightly colored threads--66½in. (174cm.) across