YELLOW-GROUND EMBROIDERED SILK 'LOTUS' SPHERICAL ELBOW CUSHION QING DYNASTY, 19TH CENTURY 清 黃地刺繡纏枝蓮花蝙蝠銜磬紋迎手 made from six oval-shaped panels with two circles at top and bottom, the yellow satin weave ground embroidered in shaded red, white and blue untwisted silk yarn mostly in satin stitch and small knots, each panel has the same design of a large lotus flower hanging below a bat and bianqin- a traditional Chinese percussion instrument, the two circles on the top and bottom similarly decorated with four bats encircling a blossoming flower

(27cm wide)

Provenance: From the collection of the late Sir Alan Campbell, GCMG, thence by descent to a private collector, Leamington Spa. The ball was possibly acquired by the diplomat Alan Campbell (later Sir Alan Campbell, 1919-2007) in Beijing in 1956-57 during his time as Head of Chancery at the British Legation, or by his father Hugh Campbell (1873-1943), a silk merchant and Director of Ilbert & Co, Shanghai in the early 1900s. Hugh Campbell married Ethel Warren (1881-1951) in Shanghai in 1905, daughter of HM Consul-General in Shanghai, Sir Pelham Warren (1845-1923). It is also possible that the ball may have been a wedding gift to them. Hugh Campbell retired to England after the First World War but returned to China several times in the 1920s/30s in the attempt to save his firm from collapse during the Depression.

Note: Solid cushions like this, for resting the elbows and forearms, were put on large throne-like chairs and on the raised heated platforms used for sitting in North China. The graded blues and reds of the embroidery silks and the yellow colour of the background material indicate that they may have originally been in one of the imperial palaces. A pair of closely comparable spherical elbow cushions of similar shape and design, dated to the Qing dynasty 1780-1850, are in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, accession number: FE.138A-1983; another pair of yellow-ground embroidered silk 'lotus' square cushions, dated to Qing dynasty 18th-19th century, was sold at Sotheby's New York, 29 September 2021, lot 948