Blue Silk Brocake Manchu Coat with Asymetrical Cloud Colar and Machined Ribbon

China

Qing dynasty (1644-1912), About 1900

  • Titles Blue Silk Brocake Manchu Coat with Asymetrical Cloud Colar and Machined Ribbon (Descriptive)
  • Artist China
  • Medium silk
  • Dimensions 34 1/2 x 35 1/2 in. (87.6 x 90.2 cm)
  • Credit Line Collection of the Art Fund, Inc. at the Birmingham Museum of Art; Gift of Jackie Mazzara, AFI.292.2010
  • Work Type jacket
  • Classification Costume

See More of the Collection

Female musician playing lute riding brown and buff horse
Stereo view of the Great Wall.
Actor Onoe Baikō IV(?) as Sakuraya no Koman, Utagawa Toyokuni, ink and color on paper
These two charming silver sparrows, one with wings spread and one with wings closed, has been decorated with a variety of jewels. The feathers are set with lapis lazuli; the shoulders—rendered in silver with a gold wash—edged with rubies, and the tail feathers decorated with malachite. Gold wash enhances the beak, legs, and feet. The larger bird, standing with its head cocked to one side, has round alert eyes and carries in its beak a stem with two berries. The artist has perfectly captured the spry but fleeting nature of his subjects. Such objects serve as a testament to the ingenuity and technical skill with which luxury goods from India were crafted. In a separate note, in wonderful coincidence, this collector acquired the two birds separately. The bird with spread wings was acquired from a New York dealer in April 2011; the bird with closed wings, from a small collector in Massachusetts in February 2016. The two birds, crafted by the same Gujarati silversmith, had been separated for, probably, more than a hundred years, but have now once more been united.