Lot 4030. A very rare brocade douniu dragon badge, buzi, Ming dynasty, 16th century; 14 1/4 x 15 in. (36.2 x 38.1 cm.) mounted. Estimate 280,000 - HKD 350,000. Price realised HKD 500,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2012.  

Finely worked with a couched gold-thread four-clawed dragon clutching precious jewels, its head framed by a pair of down curving horns before a striped full and flaming mane. The dragon flying in an orange sky filled with ruyi-shaped clouds is picked out in blues and greens above a sea of rolling and cresting waves from which emerge trident mountains.

Provenance: Alan Kennedy, New York.

Note: A douniu dragon badge of similar composition was included in the Hong Kong Museum of Art 1995 exhibition and published in Heavens Embroidered Cloths, One thousand years of Chinese Textiles, fig. 89, where the authors record that these badges were awarded by the Emperor for special merit. The douniu was special type of dragon which is only depicted in the Ming dynasty, and can be distinguished by its rounded, down curving, ox-bow horns.