Page 54 - Chiense TExtiles, MET MUSEUM Pub 1934

THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

being superimposed on the brocade-like pattern of the
background. Among other examples of this embroid-
ery in the collection are a pair of imperial chair covers
and a small panel of floral design. In almost every
case the embroidery is used for both design and back-
ground.
The petit-point stitch is beautifully exemplified in the
Museum collection on one of the most prized imperial
robes from the Paul Bequest. A full illustration is not
given, since the color contrasts are so slightly defined
that no idea of the beauty of the robe can be gained
through a halftone, but a detail is illustrated in figure 12
which does show something of the stitch used. The em-
broidery is done in unusually somber tones for the Chi-
nese, but with their happy instinct for color harmony
there evolves from the somberness a softly beautiful gar-
ment with dull gold dragons gleaming against the neu-
tral ground. The design of the body is in small conven-
tionalized patterns, mostly worked in outline, so that,
although the embroidery covers every inch of the robe,
the soft gauziness is retained. This eighteenth-century
robe is one of the few gauze robes of so early a date in
the collection. A group of twentieth-century ones, most
of them with embroidered patterns done in petit-point,
Florentine, and other stitches, represent women's sum-
mer robes as they are worn today. These are in vivid
colors, many of which were obviously produced from
Western dyes.
An emperor's sacrificial robe from the collection of

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