A Chinese red silk embroidered bed-cover for the Dutch market
The red silk cover, one one side elaborately embroided in coloured silk and gilt-paper-wrapped thread, with a central medaillion with Phoenix, surrounded by various equestrian figures, hunters, European figures, dogs, cranes, foliage and all kinds of heavenly creatures.
H. 240 x W. 210 cm
This bed cover for the European market incorporates a mixture of Chinese and European decorative motifs. It is decorated with hunting scenes of noblemen, squires, horsemen, hunters a noblewoman with attendant, all dressed in the European fashion of the first half of the 18th century, besides exotic birds, cranes, phoenixes and butterflies. In the center and repeated in the four corners are phoenixes with spread wings.
Part of the China collection.
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A large Chinese export white gold embroidered silk bed-cover or wall-hanging
The superb wall-hanging is decorated with gilt-paper-wrapped wrapped-thread flowers, birds, phoenixes, Chinese lions and, in the center, a crowned double-headed eagle. The double-headed eagle is the emblem of the Habsburg dynasty, the Romanovs, as well as of the Order of Saint Augustine, as Saint Augustine was known as ‘The Hipona Eagle’. While the main emblem of the Augustinian Order is a heart pierced by two arrows, King Philip II of Spain (1527-1598), after whom the Philippine islands were named, granted the Spanish Order of Saint Augustine in the Philippines to use the Holy Roman Empire emblem of the double-headed eagle as their emblem in Asia, but without the political insignia of the sword, sceptre and imperial orb. For two other gold and polychrome embroidered double-headed eagles on Chinese satin, see: Uit Verre Streken, June 2008, no. 21, and November 2015, no. 39.