WOMEN'S COURT DRESS IN RED SILK EMBROIDERED WITH PHOENIXES, CHINA, 19TH CENTURY Featuring eight roundels depicting a central crane surrounded by bats and Buddhist emblems and flowers, above crashing waves with Shou characters and mountains and a deep lishui hem, the black silk bands featuring smaller similar roundels and Buddhist symbols, with sky blue silk lining. In very good condition, a few discolourings in the internal lining silk. 186 cm wide,140 cm high A RED SILK PHOENIX EMBROIDERED COURT LADY ROBE, CHINA, 19TH CENTURY Provenance: From the heritage of a French Diplomat (Saint John Perse) who received as a gift from the Imperial General Dann Pao Tchao early in the 20th Century, from the Imperial wardrobe. Alexis Leger (1887-1975), better known as Saint John Perse, was a French poet, writer and diplomat, awarded the 1960 Nobel Prize in Literature. In 1914, he joined the French diplomatic service and from 1916 to 1921, he was secretary to the French embassy in Peking. Note: The dress was a ceremonial dress from the late 19th century, worn by a high court lady or the empress herself, and comes from the wardrobe of the imperial court in Beijing. In 1912, China changed from an Empire to a republic presided over by 'imperial generals' who occupied various regions of China, often in conflict with one another. In 1915, Beijing's China allied itself with France in the Great War against Germany. From 1915 to 1923, my uncle Alexis de St. Léger Léger, my mother's brother, a young diplomat and poet (a 1960 Nobel Prize winner for poetry under the pseudonym 'Saint-Jhon Perse') was in Beijing as Secretary of the French Embassy. In 1916, during a conflict in Beijing, he rescued the wife of the President Li Yuan-Hong, along with the young prince and the court concubines, in the embassy, establishing friendly relations (pg.847 of the Oevre Complets). In 1919, (pg. 873-874-875 of the Oevre Complets) the General Miss Dann Pao Tchao, (daughter of an Imperial Court dignitary and when she was young a lady-in-waiting to Empress Tseu-hi ) was Mistress of Ceremonies to President Li Yuanhong. She chose the robe in question for my uncle Alexis from the imperial wardrobe and personally delivered it to my grandmother René Léger Dormois in Paris. The robe was for my uncle Alexis, as a wedding gift for his sister Paulette Léger, who married Ubaldo in 1918, my mother, from whom I inherited it upon her death in 1965.The above is documented in letters from my uncle Alexis to his mother (my grandmother) René Dormoy (wife of Amedée Léger), published in: Saint-Jhon Perse', Complete Works, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, NRF, ed. Gallimard, Paris, 1972.