Skip to main content

This auction has ended. View lot details

You may also be interested in

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

A blue-ground kesi dragon robe, longpao Guangxu period image 1
A blue-ground kesi dragon robe, longpao Guangxu period image 2
Lot 11

A blue-ground kesi dragon robe, longpao
Guangxu period

2 April 2025, 16:00 AEDT
Sydney

Sold for AU$18,450 inc. premium

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

How to sell

Looking for a similar item?

Our Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.

Find your local specialist

Ask about this lot

A blue-ground kesi dragon robe, longpao

Guangxu period
136.0cm long, 220.0cm wide

Footnotes

Provenance:
Linda Wrigglesworth, London, 29 Jun 1981 (Receipt)

清光緒 藍地緙絲柿蒂紋錦地龍袍

傳承:
倫敦 Linda Wrigglesworth,1981年6月29日(收據)

The brilliant purple in this gown accentuates the details of the dragons, the fire of the flaming pearl, the Buddhist emblems, the clouds and vertical waves, highlighting these decorations against the ground of swastika and calyx symbols. This purple had never been seen in any previous Chinese textiles before the Guangxu period. According to Ming Wilson in Imperial Chinese Robes from the Forbidden City, the brilliant mauve colouring is likely to have been produced from an aniline dye. "The first synthetic dye, known as 'Perkin's purple' after the chemist who discovered it. The 1862 International Exhibition in London made these new bright colours an instant success and soon the dyes ere being exported abroad. We know from customs' reports that the dyes were being sent to China from at least 1871.", see ibid., p.43.

這件龍袍中的瑰紫色,點綴著龍紋的鬚、鰭,金珠的火焰、八寶、雲頭、立水,使個中紋飾躍然錦地之上,十分搶眼。這種瑰紫色,在光緒朝之前不曾見於中國織染之上,是十九世紀下半葉化工史上首創的合成染料。據 Ming Wilson 在Imperial Chinese Robes from the Forbidden City 中記載,該色以發明它的化學家 Perkin 命名。1862年倫敦國際博覽會使其一舉成名,並很快遠銷海外。我們從海關報告中得知,至少自1871年起,這些染料就已出口中國。參見同書,第43頁。

Additional information

Bid now on these items