LADY'S EMBROIDERED BLUE SILK ROBE
QING DYNASTY, 19TH CENTURY
清 石青地刺繡蝶戀花人物紋女衫with long and wide sleeves, embroidered on a navy silk ground with butterflies, flowers and small figures in a garden setting
130cm wide 
From the collection of Constance Bircher (1898 – 1952), the current owner’s grandmother. Constance Bircher’s mother Ethel Constance Clark married Sir Augustus Meredith Nanton, of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He was a broker, financier, capitalist, philanthropist and nation builder who aimed to develop the northwest from a region, dependent upon central Canada and Great Britain for immigration and development capital, to one capable of generating its own wealth. In recognition of his war services, he was knighted in 1917 by King George V and made a Knight of the Order of St John of Jerusalem. Constance married a Swiss, Ernst Bircher (of the famous Bircher muesli family). The current owner’s father, Freddie Bircher, was their second son.