Page 89 - Bonhams, FIne Chinese Art, Linda Wrigglesworth Collection, May 13, 2021 London

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Boldly designed in brilliant colourful silk, imaginary species. Accordingly, civil officials Compare with a related silk embroidered
making lavish use of couched-gold thread of the first rank wore badges displaying the badge of a crane, Kangxi, which was sold at
worked in a geometric pattern, the present Manchurian crane; second-rank officials wore Christie’s Hong Kong, 30 May 2012, lot 4032.
badge is a rare example dating to the Kangxi badges decorated with golden pheasants;
period and would have been made for a civil the third rank wore peacocks, the fourth
official of the fourth rank. Badges were made wild geese shown with ochre plumage, the
to be worn in pairs, respectively to the back fifth silver pheasants; the sixth egrets; the
and the front of the surcoat, the latter was seventh mandarin ducks; the eight quails;
split to allow the garment to be buttoned up at the ninth paradise flycatchers. Birds generally
the front. The present badge would have been symbolised literary elegance and were thus
therefore designed to be sewn onto the back a suitable creature to designate civil officials
of the garment. who had gained their position through
examinations based on the classics of the
Although a variety of symbols had been Confucian canon; see L.Wrigglesworth and
used since antiquity to indicate rank, an all- G.Dickinson, The Imperial Wardrobe, London,
inclusive court-ranking system was instituted 1990, pp.121-122.
in 1391 and continued in force with small
adjustments until 1911. Different categories of Compare with a related silk badge embroidered
animals distinguished the aristocracy from the in couched gold thread and peacock-
gentry, while other types differentiated status feather-wrapped thread, depicting a qilin,
within the nine grades of the military and civil Kangxi, in the Philadelphia Museum of Art,
bureaucracies; see S.V.R.Camman, ‘The illustrated in Art of China. Highlights from the L.Wrigglesworth and G.Dickinson, The
Development of of the Mandarin Squares’, Philadelphia Museum of Art, New Haven and Imperial Wardrobe, London, 1990, p.121.
in Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol.8, London, 2018, p.153. See another related
no.2, 1944, pp.71-130. Badges decorated silk badge depicting a crane, embroidered in
with different types of birds were reserved for couched gold thread, Kangxi, illustrated by
use by the civil officials. The birds used as a L.Wrigglesworth and G.Dickinson, The Imperial
rank insignia were based on real, rather than Wardrobe, London, 1990, p.121.
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