Unique and Rare Chinese Embroidered Album, circa 1750

This unique album, titled in French Costumes de la Chine (“Costumes of China”) holds 192 silk embroideries—ladies, warriors, phoenixes, flowers, and even European royals—cut and mounted on paper. Some use rare looped stitches that lift off the page, blending Chinese and minority techniques. Made not for daily wear but as a luxury cabinet piece for European elites, it captures the wonder of 18th–19th century global exchange, when Chinese artisans reimagined both their own culture and the West in dazzling thread.

Wonders

in Silk

Wonders

in Silk

Wonders

in Silk

Wonders

in Silk

Wonders

in Silk

Wonders

in Silk

Appreciation

Phoenix Pairs – Remarkable Birds
These embroidered phoenixes show how Chinese artisans reimagined auspicious motifs for global audiences. The first pair glitters with rare looped stitches, creating feathers that lift from the page in dazzling three-dimensional relief. The second, labeled remarkable Birds, uses vivid satin stitch to outline the phoenixes in bold symmetry. In China, the phoenix symbolized harmony and joy; in Europe, it appeared as an exotic wonder. Together they embody the hybrid nature of this album—part cultural emblem, part cabinet curiosity—crafted for elite collectors of the 18th–19th century.

Aristocratic Figures in Silk
This embroidered lady, long labeled by later owners as an “English Female Habit,” in fact recalls the courtly dress of early 18th-century Europe: a high coiffure, red bodice, black mantle, and ornate skirt. Her appearance is strikingly close to the Baroque and early Rococo styles visible in German and French portraiture.

Beside her stand two officers in justaucorps coats, powdered wigs, and sashes, carrying sword, drum, and standard—imagery rooted in the visual culture of European courts around 1700–1740.

Together, these figures embody the way Chinese artisans transformed imported engravings into silk applications for export. While the album itself was compiled later, their sources likely stem from the same aristocratic milieu that surrounded Sibylla Augusta of Baden-Baden (1675–1733), a noted patron and collector of Chinese art. Her passion for chinoiserie makes it tempting to imagine that such images—if not the embroideries themselves—once circulated within her world, bridging the distance between European nobility and Chinese craftsmanship.

Contact

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