絹 吉服 清時代

Nine dragons, along with twelve other symbols, decorate this semiformal robe from the Qing court. The creatures are seen against a pale ground of silk that recalls the sky, thereby pointing to their ability to bring rain. Indeed, the dragon embodied the beneficial forces of nature associated with the powers of water. The designs signal the emperor’s parallel control of water and irrigation, which was essential to the agrarian foundations of the state. Water is further evoked in the diagonal bands and rounded billows of the hem: at the margins of the universe represented on the robe is the ocean that was believed to surround the earth. Here, the dragon designs render the robe a plan of the ordered cosmos—under the purview of the emperor.