Embroidery Silk with Celestial Dragons With Clouds and Ocean Motifs, with upper Border of Imperial 5 Clawed Dragons from the Forbidden City in Beijing.
The five-clawed dragon is the emperor’s sacred symbol of imperial power, representing its dignity.
Even though dragons are mythological animals, they are symbols of the natural world, they are the rulers of the seas and the skies.
The rain divinity is associated with heavenly beneficence and fecundity.
Dragons symbolise adaptability as they are capable of transformations, they also symbolise power and they are the highest symbol of good luck in the animal kingdom.
In Chinese art the dragon evolved from a limbless snake-like creature in the pre Qin dynasty (pre 221 BC) to the composite creature, a combination of many animals, including the horns of a stag, ears of a bull, eyes of a rabbit, claws of a tiger and the scales of a fish, all on a long serpent’s body.