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This appears to be a seated Chinese emperor portrait, but elephant hesds instead of dragons?
Looked at more than 30 seated emperor portraits, no elephants. This is a scan of a photograph, best resolution I could get. Thanks for any help or suggestions, Jim

Since posting, additional research has turned up the following: A Mandarin square, also known as a rank badge, was a large embroidered badge sewn onto the surcoat of an official in Imperial China. It was embroidered with detailed, colourful animal (military) or bird (civil) insignia indicating the rank of the official wearing it. This began with the Ming dynasty and continued to the end of the Qing. The Ming badge was large, without borders. The Qing badge had border added, and was reduced in size. This individual is wearing a reduced size badge with borders and a bird insignia, so, a civil official of high rank in the Qing dynasty. But I would still like to know the identity of this individual. Thenks for any help, Jim

Isn't the emperor but a civil servant, judging by the rank badge. I can't make out what the bird is, so can't say what grade is represented. I've included a link so you can give it a shot and report back to all of us.

Good luck,

Bill H.

URL Title :QingRankBadges

looks like peacock to me...or possibly one of the pheasants

Bill, thanks very much for your reply. Thr bird in my photo is larger, that is, fills the badge to a much greater extent than any pictured in the Pinterest resource. I haven't been able to get a clearer image, or make a reasonable comparison. If anything changes, I will post here. Again, thank you for your help, Jim

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