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Lot Essay
Major General John Heron Maxwell Shaw Stewart (1831-1908) was a British military engineer and Chief Secretary for Public Works in Madras (Chennai), India. He was also the nephew of the 6th Baronet of the Shaw-Stewart Baronetcy, of Greenock and Blackhall in the Country of Renfrew.
As opposed to the more commonly found altar frontals, which were suspended around the front and both sides of the table, altar covers that would cover all four sides of the table and the top are extremely rare. This lavishly decorated altar cover is sumptuously worked in gold and silver threads with sixty-eight five-clawed dragons. Each side is woven with a central front-facing dragon chasing a flaming pearl and flanked by two confronted dragons, all writhing amidst ruyi-shaped clouds above rolling waves. The valence comprises pleated rectangular panels decorated with further dragons. The storage label sewn into the present cover appears to indicate a specific placement and may indicate the cover was placed over a large altar table within an imperial hall. Woven yellow silk coverings featuring a very similar central front-facing dragon above waves can be found covering boxes containing the twenty-five imperial seals in the Jiaotai Dian (Hall of Union), as illustrated by Wan Yi, Wang Shuqing and Lu Yanzhen, Daily Life in the Forbidden City, 1985, pp. 22-23, no. 12. Also pictured, p. 193, is a photograph of the Qian Qing Gong (Palace of Heavenly Purity), which illustrates how such altar covers and frontals were used in imperial settings. (Fig. 1)
As opposed to the more commonly found altar frontals, which were suspended around the front and both sides of the table, altar covers that would cover all four sides of the table and the top are extremely rare. This lavishly decorated altar cover is sumptuously worked in gold and silver threads with sixty-eight five-clawed dragons. Each side is woven with a central front-facing dragon chasing a flaming pearl and flanked by two confronted dragons, all writhing amidst ruyi-shaped clouds above rolling waves. The valence comprises pleated rectangular panels decorated with further dragons. The storage label sewn into the present cover appears to indicate a specific placement and may indicate the cover was placed over a large altar table within an imperial hall. Woven yellow silk coverings featuring a very similar central front-facing dragon above waves can be found covering boxes containing the twenty-five imperial seals in the Jiaotai Dian (Hall of Union), as illustrated by Wan Yi, Wang Shuqing and Lu Yanzhen, Daily Life in the Forbidden City, 1985, pp. 22-23, no. 12. Also pictured, p. 193, is a photograph of the Qian Qing Gong (Palace of Heavenly Purity), which illustrates how such altar covers and frontals were used in imperial settings. (Fig. 1)