A fine Chinese five-colour cloud blue-ground summer gauze 'Dragon' robe, Jifu, Qing dynasty, first half of the 19th century, the blue silk gauze worked in couched gold thread and fine counted stitch with nine five-clawed dragons pursuing flaming pearls amidst five-colour clouds interspersed with bats and melons or persimmons above a wide terrestrial diagram and lishui stripe separated by billowing ruyi-shaped clouds, with similar decoration repeated on the border, collar and horse shoe cuffs, with midnight-blue silk gauze sleeve extensions, 207cm cuff to cuff x 144cm hem to collar; sold with two sheets of Chinese Government 5% Gold Loan, 1912, £100 (Crisp loan) Provenance:By family inheritanceCharlotte Victoria Hunt (nee Crisp) until 1964Collected by Charles Birch Crisp (1887-1958) in Peking circa 1912Charles 'Chinese' Crisp was a financier known as 'Chinese' Crisp because of his work in raising finance for the Chinese Government, culminating in a five million pound Bond issue in 1912. He was also a personal friend of Sir Winston Churchill, but in later years Mr Crisp fell on hard times, and in 1953 sold at Sotheby's personal letters written to him by Sir Winston Churchill. A very similar blue gauze dragon robe, is illustrated by C. Hall et al., Power Dressing, Textiles for Rulers and Priests from the Chris Hall Collection, Asian Civilizations Museum, 2006, p. 147, no. 23, where the authors note that, 'blue was the colour used on dragon robes worn by the third and fourth degree princes, nobles down to the eleventh degree, and officials'. They further state that the appearance of the five-clawed dragons, together with the colour and style, indicate that the robe was likely made to be worn by a third or fourth degree prince or noble, as would have been the case with the present robe.清十九世紀早期 石青地納紗彩雲金龍紋吉服袍拍品來源：Charles Birch Crisp (1887-1958) 于1912年左右購自北平，後由家族傳承，他為英國前首相丘吉爾密友，並曾幫助北洋政府發行了總價約五百萬鎊的國庫券。

in fine condition other than some minor loose gold threads loose and other minor faults and very minor fading