Badge with Five-Clawed Dragon Surrounded by Plum Blossoms
Not on view
Badges with festival symbols were not used at the Chinese court after 1644, and those showing plum blossoms are especially rare. Plum-blossom badges were appropriate for the winter solstice, a festival of the eleventh lunar month. Both the form of the dragon's head seen here and the embroidery technique have close parallels in the finds from Dingling, the tomb of the Ming-dynasty Wanli emperor (r. 1573—1620).
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