Rare chinese find - Was it made for the emperor

[leeb2012]

Ok I found this silk banner on a house clearance last week, about a year ago a friend was saying to me that only the emperor is alowed to own something that has a 5 clawed dragon.. Is this correct?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=281104595872&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT

[Ipcress]

Ok I found this silk banner on a house clearance last week, about a year ago a friend was saying to me that only the emperor is alowed to own something that has a 5 clawed dragon.. Is this correct?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=281104595872&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT

No that's not correct. However, this is superb quality, probably late 19th / early 20th.
The birds are fenghuang. I think this is depicting the eight immortals and one other character ( it says nine people )

Should be a few thousand in todays money.

[bigwull]

we will watch with interest,as this is the one....

[leeb2012]

well lets hope this is the one :-) I have had so many emails regarding this. People are offering buy it now prices again and again.

[leeb2012]

Ok I found this silk banner on a house clearance last week, about a year ago a friend was saying to me that only the emperor is alowed to own something that has a 5 clawed dragon.. Is this correct?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=281104595872&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT

No that's not correct. However, this is superb quality, probably late 19th / early 20th.
The birds are fenghuang. I think this is depicting the eight immortals and one other character ( it says nine people )

Should be a few thousand in todays money.

thanks for the info it was racking my brains trying to work out the birds.

[bigwull]

well lets hope this is the one :-) I have had so many emails regarding this. People are offering buy it now prices again and again.

What I,ve found in the past...when people come in with..do you have a" buy it now",..anytime its happened to me,..I just ask them to make an offer,...and  9 out of 10, never respond,..as for this item...we all wish you good fortune,...and hope, it goes ballistic...like one of my finds a few years ago,you can read about it on Special Threads and Exceptional,..its under Dang it...

[Ipcress]

Ok I found this silk banner on a house clearance last week, about a year ago a friend was saying to me that only the emperor is alowed to own something that has a 5 clawed dragon.. Is this correct?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=281104595872&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT

No that's not correct. However, this is superb quality, probably late 19th / early 20th.
The birds are fenghuang. I think this is depicting the eight immortals and one other character ( it says nine people )

Should be a few thousand in todays money.

thanks for the info it was racking my brains trying to work out the birds.

Can you get extra pictures ? I'd like to see who the immortals are with ( definitely them ). Might be buddha or an emperor.

My guess at a price is £5,000, though if some Chinese think it's older then it could do a bit more

[leeb2012]

Ok I found this silk banner on a house clearance last week, about a year ago a friend was saying to me that only the emperor is alowed to own something that has a 5 clawed dragon.. Is this correct?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=281104595872&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT

No that's not correct. However, this is superb quality, probably late 19th / early 20th.
The birds are fenghuang. I think this is depicting the eight immortals and one other character ( it says nine people )

Should be a few thousand in todays money.

thanks for the info it was racking my brains trying to work out the birds.

Can you get extra pictures ? I'd like to see who the immortals are with ( definitely them ). Might be buddha or an emperor.

My guess at a price is £5,000, though if some Chinese think it's older then it could do a bit more

well after further research and asking my chinese friend who is a big fan of chinese history she has informed me it is a buddah.

i will post pictures :-D

[Ipcress]

Could be a buddhist character but also the Jade Emperor - the panel depicting the eight immortals crossing the sea to the peach banquet

[leeb2012]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/47128014@N02/sets/72157633501518880/

please see the photos here

[leeb2012]

Could be a buddhist character but also the Jade Emperor - the panel depicting the eight immortals crossing the sea to the peach banquet

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=281104595872&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT

i have added the photos to the listing :-)

[talesofthesevenseas]

What the toes mean depends on the age of the stitchery.

Historically, the dragon was the symbol of the Emperor of China. In the Zhou Dynasty, the 5-clawed dragon was assigned to the Son of Heaven, the 4-clawed dragon to the nobles (zhuhou, seigneur), and the 3-clawed dragon to the ministers (daifu). In the Qin Dynasty, the 5-clawed foot dragon was assigned to represent the Emperor while the 4-clawed and 3-clawed dragons were assigned to the commoners. The dragon in the Qing Dynasty appeared on national flags.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_dragon

This is no longer followed and after a time, people could put as many toes on their dragons as they wanted. There are also Korean dragons and Japanese dragons which have different numbers of toes. So you have to first identify the country of origin, then the age of the piece to determine if the number of toes has any significance or not.

I have a 100+ year old hand carved Chinese wedding bed with dragons. My dragons have three toes. The dragons are also highly abstract. Both these factors we believe indicate that my bed was owned by a common person during a time when the rules about toes were still followed or at least were respected. Here is one of my dragons:

[leeb2012]

What the toes mean depends on the age of the stitchery.

Historically, the dragon was the symbol of the Emperor of China. In the Zhou Dynasty, the 5-clawed dragon was assigned to the Son of Heaven, the 4-clawed dragon to the nobles (zhuhou, seigneur), and the 3-clawed dragon to the ministers (daifu). In the Qin Dynasty, the 5-clawed foot dragon was assigned to represent the Emperor while the 4-clawed and 3-clawed dragons were assigned to the commoners. The dragon in the Qing Dynasty appeared on national flags.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_dragon

This is no longer followed and after a time, people could put as many toes on their dragons as they wanted. There are also Korean dragons and Japanese dragons which have different numbers of toes. So you have to first identify the country of origin, then the age of the piece to determine if the number of toes has any significance or not.

I have a 100+ year old hand carved Chinese wedding bed with dragons. My dragons have three toes. The dragons are also highly abstract. Both these factors we believe indicate that my bed was owned by a common person during a time when the rules about toes were still followed or at least were respected. Here is one of my dragons:

great thanks for the information, i have since been told that this might be from a wedding bed. thanks again

[talesofthesevenseas]

It looks marriage related to me because you have the dragon (represents the man) and the phoenix (represents the woman). What I love about Chinese art is that there can be layer upon layer of meaning. I'm afraid I don't know enough about Chinese mythology to know who the folks are below and what their story is.