A LADY'S INFORMAL KESI COURT ROBE


Late Qing dynastyFinely woven with eight medallions containing flowering and fruiting double-gourd vines enclosed within linked foliate and ruyi borders, surrounded by butterflies and hydrangeas, the design repeated on the collar and wide sleeve bands, edged in black and gold brocade, with terrestrial diagram and lishui border at the hem.57in (144.7cm) long
|晚清 緙絲彩繪瓜蝶綉球紋夾袍The use of decorative roundels in Chinese textiles dates to the Tang dynasty (618-906). The motifs contained within--here repeated on the cuffs and collar--are dictated by the wearer's position in society and also the occasion. Whereas dragons would be worn for the most formal imperial events and ceremony, floral imagery would be appropriate for domestic affairs. See John Vollmer, Clothed to Rule the Universe Ming and Qing Dynasty Textiles at The Art Institute of Chicago, p. 73.Similar examples are illustrated by Robert D. Jackson, Imperial Silks: Ch'ing Dynasty Textiles in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, vol. I, Minneapolis, 2000, nos. 97, 98, 101, 102.