Featured Ancestoral Painting ID

Perchance anybody recognize the gentleman, royalty or serf?

 

Gorgeous. Any other clues? Size? I eagerly await opinions from the brains' trust ...

 

I am guessing a Chinese emperor & empress. Two members who may have more knowledgeable ideas are @Any Jewelry & @Asian Fever

 

A Mandarin (Chinese high official) and (his?) wife. I think his costume is a winter costume. These are generally called ancestor portraits.
Asian Fever will be able to tell you more.

 

I think they're lovely. I wonder why the legs are so short and the hands aren't seen?

 

they both have footstools....

legs aren't short..........chairs are huge.....

 

Ah, but compare the height of the man's head, with his hat, to the height of his legs from the bottom of his feet to his knees. Either he had a huge head or his legs are disproportionately short. If the painting were true to life, since his legs are closer to the front than his head, they'd appear disproportionately long rather than short.

Unless ancient Chinese folks had short legs?

 

I think these are decorative and not meant as actual portraits of real people. Pseudo-ancestor portraits.

I agree about the legs, but that's just the quality of the work.

 

a Chinese emperor & empress ancestors. (Need to correct, they are not emperor and empress, they are officer and his spouse.)


They are wooden relief plaque and so many are made these days especially tibet budda plaques. I guess this one probably made after 2000.

 

Measures 46"H x 30"W carved soapstone? with ivory for faces in relief. No, not wood.

 

They sat with their legs under them, pseudo-kneeling.

 

Can you take a clearer picture of this image? Thanks.


Or otherwise, can you verify ,which is the closest image as it? Thanks

 

Ah, so it really is three-dimensional, not painted to look 3D?

 

You have several civil servant badges!!!! I look for them all the time, but they are rare when you are only looking in antique malls and garage sales. (I'm not knowledgeable enough to sort them out on line) I'm not surprised though after I saw your silver tea set with the dragons, I expect you have a fabulous collection. My attraction to badges comes from 37 plus years as a municipal civil servant. Never got a badge. Just a plaque.

 

Sorry about the mistake. I have none of civil servant badge right now. These are just pictures I catch up from the website and base on these patterns, I can know what tier officer ranking this gentleman is and based on his ranking, I can probably guess who he is. At first, I guess he is Zhang Zhidong, but Zhang Zhidong is tier 1 ranking and very famous. It could be probably a plaque before he become tier 1 ranking. However, it is very hard to guess a officer based on the plaque because it looks so different from the real person.

 

My mistake for assuming, not yours.

 

Not really, besides, the man's shoes are showing, wide apart. I think his feet are meant to be in them.

In many parts of Asia, a man sitting with his feet wide apart denoted power. I don't know if that was the case in China, but here is a 19th century photograph from Java where it was:

Hamengku Buwono VI, sultan of Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia.

 

Here you go, the first one is the man's and the second one is the woman's. Hopefully they're clear enough.

 

I ran across a picture of Zhang Zhidong and he has a similar plaque? on his clothing, can you please explain what tier i and all that is about cause you lost me, thanks.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Zhidong

Tier 1 is the highest ranking of Qing Dynasty officer rank. Also, in english, it appears to be the sign of difference of mandarin squares.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_square