Comparanda
Comparable Pieces Elsewhere
别处的同类件
Comparable pieces in public collections elsewhere. A single object on its own establishes very little; dating a dragon robe means setting it back among its kind. Each entry gives an accession number and a link to the object page — the number being the one thing that lets anyone check the claim independently.
This archive catalogues 27 objects. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese textiles survive, and the use of this page is to put those 27 back into that larger context: 25 specific objects in six categories, 25 of them with images in the public domain.
Dragon Robes (jifu)
The semi-formal court robe. Three things to look at first when dating one: the posture and claws of the dragons, the height and slant of the wave border at the hem, and how the shoulder and back medallions are constructed. These pieces run from the Kangxi reign to the end of the dynasty.
- Dragon Robe
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Accession1975.411.4
- Date18th century
- AttributionChina, Qing dynasty, Kangxi period (1662–1722)
- ImagesOpen access (public domain)
The earliest robe in this group. The wave border at the hem sits low and flat — set it beside a late-Qing robe and the change is immediate.
- Dragon Robe
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Accession1973.28.2
- Datenot given
- AttributionChina, Qing dynasty, Yongzheng period (1723–35)
- ImagesOpen access (public domain)
The museum’s date field is empty; only the reign line gives Yongzheng. The date is therefore left blank here rather than filled in from the reign.
- Emperor’s twelve-symbol festival robe
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Accession54.14.2
- Date1736–1795
- AttributionChina, Qing dynasty, Qianlong period (1736–95)
- ImagesOpen access (public domain)
Carries the twelve symbols, reserved to the emperor, and so the highest-ranking piece in this group. The one to start from if you need to see where each of the twelve sits.
- Festival Robe
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Accession35.84.8
- DateSecond half of the 18th century
- AttributionChina
- ImagesOpen access (public domain)
- Semi-formal Court Robe (Jifu)
The Cleveland Museum of Art
- Accession1983.32
- Datelate 1700s
- AttributionChina, Qing dynasty, Jiaqing period (1796–1820)
- ImagesOpen access (public domain)
The museum’s own two fields disagree: the date line says late 1700s, the reign line says Jiaqing (1796–1820). Both are transcribed as given rather than reconciled here; a contradiction in a record is itself worth knowing about.
- Bridal Long Pao (Dragon Robe)
Art Institute of Chicago
- Accession1943.566
- Date1875/90, Qing dynasty (1644–1911)
- AttributionChina
- ImagesOpen access (public domain)
A dragon robe made for a wedding, late Qing. Close to the court form but made for another purpose entirely — a distinction easily lost.
Court Robes (chaofu)
The most formal grade, cut quite differently from the jifu: a separate upper garment and skirt joined at the waist, with its own collar piece. Far fewer survive, and museum records often use the two names interchangeably — trust the image over the title.
- Man’s Audience Robe (Chaofu)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Accession35.84.3
- DateSecond half of the 19th century
- AttributionChina
- ImagesOpen access (public domain)
The record names it chaofu outright, which makes it the least ambiguous piece in this category and a reasonable baseline.
- Robe of State
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Accession17.82.2
- Date19th century
- AttributionChina
- ImagesOpen access (public domain)
“Robe of State” is an older accession-era title that corresponds to no Chinese category. Titles of this kind remain common in museum records and are worth allowing for when searching.
Rank Badges (buzi)
Birds for civil officials, beasts for military, with a fixed creature for each of the nine ranks. Badges circulate detached from their robes in great numbers, which makes them the easiest thing in this field to acquire and the easiest to misjudge — recut, remounted and married-up examples are common.
- Rank Badge with Peacock
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Accession36.65.5
- Date18th century
- AttributionChina
- ImagesOpen access (public domain)
The peacock marks the third civil rank. The species of bird is the direct evidence of grade.
- Rank Badge
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Accession30.75.968
- Datelate 18th century
- AttributionChina
- ImagesOpen access (public domain)
- Rank Badge (buzi)
The Cleveland Museum of Art
- Accession1916.1330
- Date1850–99
- AttributionChina
- ImagesOpen access (public domain)
Kesi (silk tapestry)
Tapestry weave: the weft is discontinuous, turning back at each colour boundary and leaving the slits that give the technique its name and that show against the light. Ruinously slow to make; the Qing court used it both for robes and for imitating painting.
- Dragon-boat festival performance
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Accession49.47
- Datelate 18th to early 19th century
- AttributionChina
- ImagesOpen access (public domain)
Tapestry used in imitation of painting. A crowded composition, and about as far as the technique can be pushed with figures and architecture.
- Mythical landscape with immortals
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Accession13.220.83a–j
- Date19th century
- AttributionChina
- ImagesOpen access (public domain)
The a–j suffix means this is a set of several panels, not a single piece; cite the number in full.
- Strip of Silk Tapestry (Kesi)
The Cleveland Museum of Art
- Accession1916.1332
- Date1700s–1800s
- AttributionChina
- ImagesOpen access (public domain)
- Tapestry with Dragons and Flowers
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Accession1987.275
- Date11th–12th century
- AttributionEastern Central Asia
- ImagesOpen access (public domain)
Catalogued by the museum as Eastern Central Asian, not Chinese. Included as an early comparison for the technique itself, which long predates its use at the Ming and Qing courts and was never confined to China.
Women’s Robes
Manchu and Han women’s dress are cut differently, and telling them apart is the first thing to get right here: the Manchu changyi hangs straight, is slit at the sides and has turned-back cuffs; Han women’s garments follow another line altogether. The last two entries are one of each.
- Manchu Woman’s Informal Robe
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Accession47.136.1
- Datelate 19th–early 20th century
- AttributionChina
- ImagesOpen access (public domain)
- Woman’s Informal Robe
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Accession60.28
- Date18th century, before 1738
- AttributionChina, Qing dynasty, Yongzheng period (1723–35)
- ImagesOpen access (public domain)
A date of “before 1738” is unusual for a woman’s robe and normally means there is documented provenance behind it. Pieces like this anchor the dating of the rest.
- Manchu Woman’s Unofficial Informal Robe
Minneapolis Institute of Art
- Accession42.8.67
- DateGuangxu period, 1875–1908
- AttributionChina
- ImagesOpen access (public domain)
- Chinese Woman’s Unofficial Informal Robe
Minneapolis Institute of Art
- Accession42.8.241
- Date19th century
- AttributionChina
- ImagesOpen access (public domain)
Han-style, in cut silk velvet. Same museum and same accession group as the Manchu robe above, which makes the pair easy to compare.
Earlier Silks
Tang pearl-roundel samites and Yuan–Ming gold-brocaded silks. Several pieces here are catalogued by their museums as Central Asian or Iranian, and that is precisely why they are included: the pearl roundel travelled the Silk Road, and looking only at the Chinese half of the story shows only half of how it changed. Attributions are given as the museums give them.
- Child’s Coat with Ducks in Pearl Medallions
The Cleveland Museum of Art
- Accession1996.2.1
- Date700s
- AttributionProbably Sogdia (present-day Uzbekistan); China, Tang dynasty
- ImagesOpen access (public domain)
The best pearl-roundel comparison available in an open-access collection — not a fragment but a complete child’s coat, so pattern and cut can be read together.
- Samite with roundels of rosettes
The Cleveland Museum of Art
- Accession1950.514
- Date700s–800s
- AttributionIran
- ImagesOpen access (public domain)
Catalogued as Iranian. Read against the entry above, it shows the same roundel language at the other end of the road.
- Woman’s Robe
The Cleveland Museum of Art
- Accession1995.20
- Date907–1125
- AttributionChina, Liao dynasty
- ImagesOpen access (public domain)
Liao dynasty. Very little survives as complete garments between the Tang and the Yuan, which makes this one unusually useful.
- “Cloth of Gold” with Medallions
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Accession2001.595
- Date14th century
- AttributionChina, Yuan dynasty (1271–1368)
- ImagesOpen access (public domain)
Yuan gold-brocaded silk. How the gold thread is made and how it is bound into the weave are the key evidence for dating this class of material.
- Textile with dragons and phoenixes
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Accession2012.399
- Datelate 13th–14th century
- AttributionChina, Yuan dynasty (1271–1368)
- ImagesOpen access (public domain)
Yuan dragons and phoenixes, drawn quite unlike their Ming and Qing court descendants — a necessary step in following how the dragon changed.
- Cloth of Gold: Displayed Falcons
The Cleveland Museum of Art
- Accession1996.297
- Datemid-1200s
- AttributionCentral Asia
- ImagesOpen access (public domain)
Catalogued as Central Asian. Gold-brocaded silk was never a Chinese monopoly; this is the counterweight.
Source and image terms
Specific objects in public collections elsewhere, gathered so that the pieces catalogued here can be read against comparable material. Each entry gives the museum’s own title, accession number, date and cultural attribution, with a link to the object page. The accession number is what makes a citation checkable, so anything that could not be confirmed is left blank rather than inferred. None of the museums’ descriptive text is reproduced; the notes are written here.
Where an entry is marked open access, that object’s images are in the public domain and free to use — checked object by object, not assumed from the institution. The assumption is easy to make and wrong: the Met’s Qianlong dragon robe 43.91 is explicitly not open, and most Chinese textiles at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art carry “Usage Conditions Apply” rather than CC0, which is why none are listed here. Check the object page yourself before reproducing anything.