KANGXI PERIOD (1662-1722)

This rare Kangxi badge depicts a seventh-rank mandarin duck in a heraldic stance atop a rock finely embroidered with peacock-feather filament. The sparse, nearly symmetrical composition complete with Z-shaped cloud formations focuses attention on the central creature of rank, a visual hierarchy typical of Kangxi squares. A similar Kangxi-period badge depicting a mandarin duck is in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, bequeathed by William Christian Paul, 30.75.1021. Two similar badges of a different rank are published by B. Jackson and D. Hugus in Ladder to the Clouds: Intrigue and Tradition in Chinese Rank, Berkeley, 1999, pp. 229-30, figs. 15.010, 15.011.