Dragon Altar Cloths and Covers

Because I enjoyed the altar cloth in the previous Peranakan Dragon Art post so much, here’s a quiet post with a few more altar cloths and covers. 🕯️

About Altar Cloths / Covers

Chinese altar cloths, often known as tok wi in Peranakan culture, are traditional embroidered or batik textiles used to drape the front of household, temple, or ancestral altars during ceremonies, weddings, and Chinese New Year.

Originating in southern China, these decorative cloths feature auspicious motifs like dragons, phoenixes, and symbols of longevity.

References:

Chinese Dragon Silk Brocade Altar Cloth, Yellow/Red/Black

via Zentral Designs

Spotted this one on Zentral Designs, which comes in three colors. I liked the black one because of the contrast with the other brighter colors.

It measures 10.5 x 10.5 inches (27 x 27 cm), and can be used for tea, meditative, or other rituals.

Chinese Embroidered Altar Cloth with Dragon Design (19th/20th century)

via Coronari Auctions

A longer style altar cloth with an interesting red and black color scheme, with a more mellow green tone on the fringe design, with purple and blue highlights on the Chinese dragons.

Dragon Floating Above Waves (Javanese, mid-20th century)

via Peranakan Museum Singapore

Excerpt from the FB post:

This altar cloth of a dragon floating above waves is a typical Chinese design. The waves represent the cosmic landscape, while the dragon above emphasizes the emperor’s centrality in the cosmic hierarchy.

Many of the details are typically Javanese. The waves terminate in tendrils and the leaves in the corners morph into butterflies.

The repeating triangular pattern on the outer edge of the border is common in Southeast Asian textiles.

Altar cloth: dragon

Java, mid-20th century

Cotton (drawn batik), 101 x 99.5cm

Embroidered Dragon Altar Cover, Qing Dynasty (18th / 19th century)

via Sotheby’s

This is a detail of a bigger, 111½ x 44⅜ in. (283.2 cm x 112.7 cm) altar cover with vibrant colors.

Embroidered Midnight Blue Dragon Altar Cover (Kangxi Period, 1662-1722)

via Christie’s

From the description:

The panel is woven in gold threads with a front-facing four-clawed mang dragon chasing a flaming pearl amidst clouds and flames.

The upper flap is woven with two roundels of side-facing dragons chasing flaming pearls, flanking a central roundel of two dragons facing a shou character.

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