Page 54 - CHRISTIE'S Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art 09/14 - 15 / 17

PROPERTY FROM THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM,
NEW YORK, SOLD TO BENEFIT THE
ACQUISITIONS FUND

933
A RED-GROUND SILK
BROCADE COVERING

LATE QING DYNASTY
The textile is fnely woven in gold threads with a
large stupa decorated with lines from the Dharani
Sutra, and surrounded by smaller circular and
square panels of further text, both in Chinese and
Sanskrit, interspersed with lotus blossoms and
Buddhist symbols, all within four bands of vajra
and lotus, fre scroll, and further panels containing
text or single characters.
77 ¾ x 50 ⅛ in. (197.5 x 127.3 cm.)

$3,000-5,000

PROVENANCE

Gift of Dr. and Mrs. John P. Lyden, TL1986.410.1.

A very similar covering in the Palace Museum
Collection, Beijing, was a tribute to the
Xuantong Emperor, ofered in the frst year
of his reign (1909) and is illustrated by Wan
Yi, Wang Shuqing, and Lu Yanzhen, Daily Life
in the Forbidden City, 1985, p. 262, pl. 407.
According to the authors, these coverings were
for the exclusive funerary use of “the emperors,
empresses dowager, empresses, and imperial
concubines of the frst four ranks,” and would
have bestowed merit on the deceased. See, also,
another Dharani Sutra covering sold at Christie’s
New York, 4 June 1992, lot 165.
晚清 織金陀羅尼經被

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