encre et couleurs sur soie, montée en rouleau

The figure portrayed in this painting may be identified as a courtier of sufficiently high rank by the clothing he is wearing. Dressed in the formal attire required at imperial audiences, court assemblies or state ceremonies, he is depicted in a full court dress, chaofu, consisting of a side-fastening robe with a flaring skirt below the waist, and worn with a wide, detachable collar, piling, draped over the shoulders. The robe is held by a silk cord girdle fastened with a jade-inlaid belt buckle and an attached metal ring suspending a narrow scarf. A looped court necklace, a gemstone-set hat finial and a one-eyed peacock feather bestowed by the emperor on the official completed the sumptuous attire. 

The present portrait may be compared to another portrait of an unidentified courtier in the collection of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C., illustrated in Jan Stuart and Evelyn S. Rawski, Worshipping the Ancestors. Chinese Commemorative Portraits, Washington, D. C., Stanford University Press, 2001, pp. 132 and 133, col. pl. 5.8. On both portrait paintings the figures are seated on carved guri-lacquer chairs draped with tiger skins, an elaborately patterned carpet featuring panels of lotus flowers and scrolls within a geometric key-fret border creating a colourful background.