1:35 PM
Exhibition of imperial robes from the Forbidden City, most of which have never been seen outside China
At just this time of year, as the winter solstice approached three centuries ago, the officials of the Chinese imperial wardrobe would have been preparing some of the emperor's most stunning robes for one of the most important ceremonies of the year: blue-black silk embroidered with golden dragons, lined and with a deep border of glossy sable fur to keep out the bitter cold, as he made offerings at an open-air altar to guarantee that winter would end and spring and fertility return.
Emperor Kangxi ruled China from 1661 until 1722, but his gleaming coat survives as if the small armies of imperial silk weavers and embroiderers had completed it yesterday. It is now part of a dazzling collection of imperial robes which astonished the curator who went to the Forbidden City to collect them and goes on show tomorrow at the V&A.
Most have never left China before, but neither have they been seen by the Chinese tourists who throng the Forbidden City. The once closed world of the imperial palace has been a museum since 1925, but has no gallery suitable for displaying fragile textiles. Most have been in store since their original owners died, treated as sacred relics and never worn. There they survived the opium wars, the Boxer rebellion when the Forbidden City was extensively looted, the toppling of the empire and the establishment of the republic, both world wars and the cultural revolution.
'When I first saw them in the stores, I could not believe my eyes,' curator Ming Wilson said. She was born in southern China, but had never seen any of the garments. 'I had seen a photograph, but they were so much more beautiful, and the condition was so extraordinary, I was astonished. It has never happened before to me as a curator. Most of them have never left the stores: the collection is so enormous it has taken five generations of curators since 1925 just to complete the stock taking.'
The exhibition includes a wedding gown made in 1889 when Yehe Nara Jingen married the emperor Guangxu, which took three years to make. It is richly embroidered with dragons and phoenix, on red silk, the colour for weddings: the last boy emperor Pu Yi recalled that when he married in 1922, two years before he was expelled from the Forbidden City, the bridal chamber 'looked like a melted red wax candle'.
The garments followed a strict hierarchy: bright yellow for the emperor, apricot yellow for his sons, Siberian sable only for the imperial family, pale blue for moon ceremonies, padded robes embroidered with narrow rows of gold to look like metal armour for travelling with an entourage of 3,000 people, 6,000 horses and 1,000 boats. Ordinary Chinese people could never have afforded the sumptuous dragon embroideries, but were in any case forbidden by law to use them.
Some records survive in the archives showing that the emperors took close interest in their wardrobes. In 1697 Kangshi was ordering two new fur coats for the winter, and grumbling: 'They must not be made too tight. The lot you sent last time were really uncomfortable. You must be careful.'"
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