A BLUE-GROUND EMBROIDERED MANDARIN SQUARE

Details

A BLUE-GROUND EMBROIDERED MANDARIN SQUARE
MID-19TH CENTURY

Displaying a paradise flycatcher and made for a ninth rank civil official, worked in Peking knot with gold outline with the bird in the center amidst dense clouds perched on a rock issuing from turbulent waves, the design incorporating the eight Buddhist emblems, within a key-scroll band in couched gold beneath peony heads
12½in. (31.8cm.) across, framed and glazed

Lot Essay

The position of the paradise flycatcher, facing to the right, indicates that it was made for a woman whose husband was a ninth rank official in the Manchu court. Compare a similar rank badge, with the paradise flycatcher facing to the left, illustrated by Gary Dickinson and Linda Wrigglesworth, Imperial Wardrobe, London, 1990, p. 133, pl. 116