Two-faced purse with flaps, probably for flint and tinder. Yellow satin embroidered in satin and stem stitch. One side shows an angler at a pine-banked water with a hut in the background. Fish and fowl below. The other flap shows the flower girl with her basket by the side of a water with the porch of a building in the background. Fish and duck on lower part. Body bordered with 2 cm long black bias stitches, darned on the angler’s side with two rows of white diamonds; on the other side with zigzag-and-hook as a running pattern. That side’s flap continues the zigzag and adds chevron and a four-petaled flower. On the angler’s side, the flap border alternates darned diamonds with another flower, both in white. Under the flaps, the borders of the body are plain black. (Fide: Ilse M. Fang, 8/28/2001: I always loved this - it’s very practical - there are the embroidered scenes, but when you open the purse, there’s no embroidery under the flaps: very practical.) Center compartment lined with coarse, moon-blue cotton, as is the underside of the flaps, and back of the shallow compartments under them. The front of these compartments is unlined. No signs of hanging straps. Was one flap to be tucked over the belt? Purse 12 cm wide and 11.5 cm high.
Donor:
Ilse Martin Fang
Collection place:
Peking, Beijing province, China
Verbatim coll. place:
China. Given to Ilse Fang in Peking by Erich Wolters, antique dealer.
Culture or time period:
Manchu people and Qing dynasty (1644–1912 AD)
Collector:
Ilse Martin Fang
Collection date:
1944
Materials:
Cotton (textile) and Satin
Object type:
ethnography
Object class:
Embroidery (visual works) and Purses (drawstringed accessories)
Function:
2.2 Personal Adornments and Accoutrements
Production date:
Manchu Dynasty
Accession date:
December 15, 1998
Context of use:
Manchu Dynasty 1644-1911. The warm yellow background color preserved under the flaps suggests use of the purse by a member of the imperial family.