A RARE IMPERIAL CHILD'S YELLOW KESI TWELVE-SYMBOL DRAGON ROBE

THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN

Details

A RARE IMPERIAL CHILD'S YELLOW KESI TWELVE-SYMBOL DRAGON ROBE
LATE 19TH CENTURY

Woven in shades of blue, green, purple, ochre and gold with eight, contorted, five-clawed dragons confronting flaming pearls, amidst dense stylized clouds interspersed with bats clutching wan emblems or double peaches, 'auspicious' characters and the twelve imperial symbols, all reserved on an even yellow ground above the terrestrial diagram with lishui stripe at the hem, with dark blue-ground dragon cuffs below yellow sleeves enriched with gold stripes--35in. (89cm.) long

Lot Essay

This robe was probably made for the Emperor Guangxu during his minority, circa 1885

Compare a very similar robe, made for a child emperor, and datable to the early Guangxu period, in the Royal Ontario Museum, illustrated by John E. Vollmer, In the Presence of the Dragon Throne, 1977, p. 66