rank insignia

A pair of mandarin squares or rank badges, 'buzi', made of silk and woven in tapestry or 'kesi' technique. Each depicts a paradise fly-catcher, emblem of rank of a civil official of the ninth rank. The bird, woven predominantly in cream silk with some pink and green, with two very long tail feathers, is looking upwards, wings outstretched, towards a red sun in the top left hand corner. It is surrounded by blue clouds and dotted about are many symbolic motifs, including a lotus, a vase, an endless knot, five bats, chrysanthemum flowers and cherry blossom. The imagery is framed with a swastika patterned border.

Collection Information

These objects are only a part of our collections, of which there are more than 350,000 objects. This information comes from our collections database. Some of this is incomplete and there may be errors. This part of the website is also still under construction, so there may be some fields repeated or incorrectly formatted information.

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