Heavens' Embroidered Cloths and The Philosopher's Walk
Over 15 years ago, the Oriental Ceramic Society of Hong Kong and the Urban Council, organized an exhibition, Heavens' Embroidered Cloths, One Thousand Years of ChineseTextiles, held at the Hong Kong Museum of Art in 1995. We found it when searching for photographs available for viewing of the Patricia Harris Gallery of Textiles & Costume, at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.
For instance, the Kesi (slit tapestry) robe, possibly made for the Empress Dowager in c.1900 reflects a combination of colors that today would be extremely desirable. The Empress Dowager preferred pastel shades of lavender and turquoise with designs of spider chrysanthemums interspersed with longevity characters.
A 17th century embroidered diadem which would have been worn by a lama at a monastery and a woman's vest would be worn on formal occasions. The vest displays a badge of sixth civil rank depicted by egret in a natural landscape while a Phoenix Badge is made from a kesi slit tapestry, Late Ming from 1600 to 1644. This badge would have been worn by a princess or the highest ranking noblewoman on the front of her robe. A Dragon Robe is also from the Late Ming dynasty.While at the Hong Kong Museum of Art, we discovered a Lady's Headdress Tianzi with Bats, Butterflies and Flowers in Pearls, Semi-precious Stones and Kingfisher Feather Inlay from the Qing dynasty (1644 - 1911).
We did find the Philosophers' Walk Wing, a part of the Gallery of Chinese Architecture at the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada:
"The large and impressive architectural structures explore the connections and oppositions between Yang-houses (architecture for the living) and Yin-houses (architecture for the dead), and how these spaces are fundamentally intertwined through the Chinese concept of geomancy, or fengshui. In traditional society, people visited the tombs of their family members several times a year. To represent this custom, a large wooden carriage with matching harness — the kind used to visit family tombs — is placed next to the Ming Tomb."
"The centrepiece of this gallery is the spectacular reconstruction of the corner of a 17th-century Chinese Imperial Palace building, the type found in Beijing’s Forbidden City. A crew of Chinese artisans from the National Museum of Chinese Architecture in Beijing assembled the life-sized architectural fragment and painted and gilded it in a traditional style at the ROM. "
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