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53 ? in. (135.8 cm.) long x 79 ? (179.8 cm.) wide
Traditionally, ceremonial costumes donned by members of Tibet’s aristocratic families for Losar, the Tibetan New Year, were presentations of status through the display of prestigious and rare textiles and with sumptuous displays of accessories and jewelry. Secular attire for the second day of the festivities was known as gyaluche, or royal dress. It was worn only on King’s Day, when government officials make offerings to the Dalai Lama, imitating the ancient custom?from the time of the Tibetan kings, when nobles offered tribute to the ruler and gifts would be given to the people. Gyaluche was markedly different from regular wrapped robes held with sashes. The costume consisted of a front-opening, short jacket, which was worn open over a pleated skirt and with a special rolled shawl draped diagonally across the chest. These garments were said to represent the costume of the ancient Tibetan kings. Many of these garments were made of imported luxurious Chinese silks bestowed as gifts or acquired through trade. Some of these garments, although made of centuries-old silks, remain in pristine condition since they were brought out only for a single day and carefully stored for the rest of the year.The present garment was restyled from a Chinese Daoguang-period (1821-1850) imperial robe made of tapestry-woven silk patterned with colored silk and gold-wrapped threads on a yellow ground with painted details. The Tibetan tailor altered the Chinese garment by removing the panel under the front overlap and unstitching the center front seam to create a center-front opening, which is now held closed with a pair of red, figured satin ties. The inner panel was reconfigured to lengthen the sleeves and to create a yoke-like piece with a short collar to fill in the area around the neck that would originally have been undecorated as it would have been covered by separately woven facing. A section at the waist was removed to create a shorter, mid-calf-length garment.Overcoats opening with one pair of ties at the chest are rare. Only two other similarly styled garments have been identified in the published literature. They, and this example, are made of highly prestigious Chinese imperial fabrics with yellow grounds. Two can be directly tied to specific Qing-dynasty emperors. A coat in the Edrina Collection in Sydney, Australia is made from a silk satin damask, patterned with supplemental wefts of colored floss silk and two types of gold-wrapped threads made for an emperor’s chaopao, or sacrificial robe, dating to the Kangxi period (1662-1722). A second coat, in the Newark Museum, said to have been worn by an Abbot at Ngor Monastery, in southern Tibet, is constructed from a heavy silk satin brocade with a design featuring roundels with one of four auspicious animals.John E. Vollmer, New York 1 Zong Fengying and Peter Y. K. Lam, Heavenly Splendour: The Edrina Collection of Ming and Qing Imperial Costumes (Chao tian jin xiu:sheng wen ge zang ming qing gong ting fu shi) Art Museum, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2009. See also: Christie’s New York, The Imperial Wardrobe: Fine Chinese Costume and Textiles from the Linda Wrigglesworth Collection, Wednesday 19 March 2008, lot 37 (“a very rare imperial yellow satin brocade Tibetan chuba made from the yardage of an emperor’s chaopao, fabric dating from the early 18th century”) pp. 70-71.2 Valrae Reynolds, From the Sacred Realm: Treasures of Tibetan Art from the Newark Museum, Munich: Prestel, 1999, pl. 84, pp.159 and 129-130. The coat, identified as a monk official’s riding coat, is the gift of Judith and Gerson Leiber, 83.372.