This robe is identifiable as a woman's coat by the fact that it has no vent at the front and back and the additional band of ornament at the top of the sleeve extensions. By edict, the twelve symbols of Imperial authority were reserved for the Emperor alone, and the Empress would have used five of the twelve symbols. However, it appears that the Empress Dowager used all twelve symbols when she ruled during the minority of her son. A photograph of the Empress Dowager, Cixi, in the Freer Gallery of Art shows her wearing such a robe. The photograph is reproduced by Gary Dickinson and Linda Wrigglesworth in Imperial Wardrobe, London, 1990, p. 93, pl. 75

An embroidered example of a woman's yellow twelve-symbol robe, was included in the exhibition, Secret Splendours of the Chinese Court, Qing Dynasty Costume from the Charlotte Hill Grant Collection, Denver Art Museum, December 30, 1981-March 21, 1982, and illustrated in the Catalogue, p. 60. See, also, an embroidered example, very similar to the present lot in that the decoration is superimposed on a dense ground of wan emblems, included in the exhibition, Imperial Robes and Textiles of the Chinese Court, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, April 13-June 15, 1943, illustrated by Alan Priest in the Catalogue, no. 20, pl. IV and VI (detail)