Lot 182. A Manchu military officer's silk and metal ceremonial armour, late 19th century. Estimate: 20,000 EUR - 30,000 EUR. Photo Kunsthaus Lempertz

A Manchu military officer's silk and metal partial suit of ceremonial armour (dingjia) including a jacket and a skirt of blue satin with gilt-metal studs and embroidered with dragon roundels and borders of silk velvet, the jacket with two shoulder guards attached with gilt-metal plates chased with dragons and three subsidiary flaps with black velvet edging. The skirt in two sections, the waist band of blue cotton. In addition a pair of wrist guards of partly gilded silver sheet. (4). Length of the jacket 69.5 cm; length of the skirt 95.7 cm

Provenance: Old private collection, Austria

Literature: Compare: R. D. Jacobsen, Imperial Silks, Ch’ing Dynasty Textiles in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis 2000, Vol. 1, no. 136; a similar armour was sold at Lempertz, Cologne, 10./11.12.2010, lot 196

Kunsthaus Lempertz. Asian Art. Jun 10, 2016 10:00 CEST - Jun 11, 2016 10:00 CEST