Page 145 - Bonhams, Fine Chinese Art, London November 3, 2022

A Court painting in the collection of the Denmark National Museum Combined with bats hovering above them, peaches growing from
in Copenhagen (acc.no.B.5396), dated to the Qianlong period, the cliffs rising from the wave border convey the birthday greeting
depicts a Prince wearing a related fur-lined brown-ground dragon ‘May your blessing be as deep as the Southern Mountains’. The wish
robe. A further example of a related yellow-brown-ground silk dragon is reinforced by the inclusion of sprays of narcissus, shuixian, which
robe, Qianlong, from the Qing Court Collection, is illustrated in The literally translates as ‘Immortal of the water’.
Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Costumes
and Accessories of the Qing Court, Hong Kong, 2005, p.61, no.35. A related chestnut-brown gauze silk robe, Qianlong, was sold at
Bonhams London, 16 May 2019, lot 197. Another example was sold
The present robe is particularly unusual for the details embroidered at Christie’s Hong Kong, 28 May 2014, lot 3345.
amongst the cloud scrolls, including abundant branches of ripened
peaches, narcissi and ruyi issuing from craggy rocks. These subjects
suggest that the garment may have been worn by an eminent figure
on the occasion of his birthday celebrations. Possibly China’s most
auspicious fruit, the peach was regarded as a powerful omen of
longevity and happiness. The poet Tao Qian (365-427) referred to
a peach orchard as a paradisiacal dimension discovered through
the crevices of a rock, and the popular novel ‘Journey to the West’,
Xiyou Ji, compiled during the 16th century, mentioned the ‘peaches
of Immortality’ which grew in the garden of the Queen Mother of the
West, Xi Wangmu, once every three thousand years; see A.C.Yu,
Journey to the West; Chicago, 1984, p.74; see also M.Loewe, Ways
to Paradise: the Chinese Quest for Immortality, 2011, p.95.

(two views)
FINE CHINESE ART | 143