egret rank badge, unknown maker from China

Exhibition Label:
“Flowers, Dragons and Pine Trees: Asian Textiles in the Spencer Museum of Art,” Nov-2005, Mary Dusenbury
In the Qing dynasty, rank badges were designed to be displayed on a civil official’s surcoat (pufu). The one-piece square was sewn to the back of the coat, and the split square covered the chest when the coat was closed with loops and toggles.
The egret designated a civil official of the sixth rank.

Archive Label 2003:
This pair of egret (lisi) rank badges designated a civil official of the sixth rank. The solid square was sewn to the back of his coat (pufu) and the bifurcated square covered his chest when the coat was closed with loops and toggles.

In this badge, the egret rests one foot on the cosmic mountain, spreading its wings for balance and looking up at a sun disk in the upper left corner. The sun disk appears consistently on civilian squares after the late seventeenth century, replacing a second bird that in late Ming designs descended toward the standing bird (as seen in the Ming Phoenix badge displayed on the wall to the left). The sun represented heaven and the Son of Heaven. Here, as in other Qing dynasty civilian rank badges, the bird represents the scholar-official who has one foot firmly planted at the center of the cosmos while he looks intently up at his emperor. The background is filled with Buddhist, Daoist and Eight Precious Things motifs as well as references to the four seasons and rebuses for happiness (bat), wealth and honor (peony).

The badges show signs of wear and have the remains of stitching threads at the borders. They appear to have been used for the purpose for which they were made before being detached from the coat and eventually finding their way into a Western collection.