LATE 19TH CENTURY

Details

AN HEIR-APPARENT APRICOT-GROUND SILK EMBROIDERED DRAGON ROBE, JI FU
Late 19th Century
Finely worked on the front and back in satin stitch and couched gold threads with nine contorted, five-clawed dragons grasping or confronting flaming pearls amidst dense cloud scrolls interspersed with bats, wan emblems and the Eight Buddhist Emblems, as well as some "precious objects" picked out in Peking knot, all above the terrestrial diagram and lishui stripe at the hem, picked out in shades of blue, yellow, red, gray and green and reserved on an orange ground
53½in. (135.8cm.) long

Provenance

The Collection of Beverley Jackson

Lot Essay

Compare a woman's kesi apricot-ground dragon robe, woven with eight of the twelve symbols of Imperial authority, illustrated by John E. Vollmer, Decoding Dragons: Status Garments in Ch'ing Dynasty China, University of Oregon Museum of Art, 1983, p. 70, pl. 26