This exceptionally large imperial hanging might have functioned as a curtain or a palace furnishing. Large tapestry and embroidered curtains with imperial dragon imagery were used in the throne rooms and palaces throughout the Forbidden City. These large panels exhibit the same symbolic colouration and celestial-landscape imagery encountered in court robes. Other similar imperial hangings can be seen in the collection of Minneapolis Institute of Arts, illustrated by R. Jacobsen in Imperial Silks: Ch'ing Dynasty Textiles in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, 2000, pp. 957-963. Also compare with a smaller silk brocade hanging with dragons dated to 18th/19th centuries sold at Christie's Hong Kong, November 27 2007, lot 1825.