Yellow Silk Tibetan Chuba

This robe is a traditional style of Tibetan robe, or a chuba, made from embroidered yellow silk satin fabric, which was initially made for a dragon robe and imported to Tibet from the Qing imperial court. In Tibet, tailors modified the collar and sleeves to suit the local style better. Thus the robe has yellow satin parts, without embroidery patterns, around the neckline and sleeve ends. The robe features motifs of dragons with flaming pearls, long thin clouds, rocks, waves and colourful striped water at the hem. There are eight dragons on the exterior of the robe: one on the chest, one on the back, one on each shoulder, and two on the front and back of the lower robe. As is typically seen in Chinese dragon robes, there is a hidden ninth dragon underneath the right overlap.

There are the Twelve Symbols embroidered on the robe: the sun with a three-legged bird and the moon with a rabbit are placed on shoulders, stars and mountains are above the dragon’s head on the front and back, dragons, a pheasant, an axe, the fu symbol, cups, seaweed, flames, and grain. The placement of these symbols align with the Qing imperial costume regulations for the emperor’s dragon robe.