Page 351 - Chinese Art, Vol II By Stephen W. Bushell

TEXTILES, WOVEN SILKS, ETC. loi

crested summits and floating symbols, beating against a three-
peaked hill in the centre. A bank of scrolled clouds covers the
waves, and the same cloud shapes are spread over the rest of the
robe, in the intervals of which a]ipear the forms of imperial five-
clawed dragons in pursuit of rolling discs emitting effulgent rays,
emblematical of omnipotence. Mingled with the clouds are flying
bats, symbolical of happiness ; and svastika 55^1 bols connected
with circular shou characters, " a myriad ages ! " in Chinese wan
shou, which is the equivalent of the Japanese ban zai.
The cover, of red satin, embroidered with coloured silks and
gold thread, represented in Fig. 119, is also a palace piece, being
decorated with a five-clawed dragon pursuing an effulgent jewel
and a phoenix with a spray of peony in its beak. The ground
is filled in with small scrolled sprays of other flowers and gourds,
and the centre is worked with a large shuang hsi, or " double joy "
character, the pecuhar emblem of wedded bliss, indicating a special
design for an imperial trousseau.
The Chinese are more successful, perhaps, in their treatment
of flowers and birds than of any other subject, especially in Canton
embroidery, of which so much has been brought to Europe during
the last two centuries. Some of the embroiderers at Canton
labour almost entirely for the European market, and their work
may be profitably compared with the wall-papers which have been
painted at the same place for European houses during the same
period. Wall-hangings of paper were imported from China as early
as the middle of the sixteenth century by Spanish and Dutch
merchants and found their way to our islands before the end of the
following century, as explained by Mr. A. G. B. Russell in an
interesting paper in the Burlington Magazine, July, 1905, in which
he illustrates a typical " seventeenth-century wall-paper at Wotton-
under-Edge," and refers to others still to be seen in situ at Ightham
Mote, in Kent, and at Cobham Hall, the seat of the Earl of Darnley.
The basis of the wall design is generally a formal row of trees laden
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