Pátio da Claridade near the Barra district of old Macao consists of a long alleyway of 48 buildings originally fishermen’s homes and that was then formerly managed by STDM as a social housing project for the elderly. The north side of the patio consists of a row of two-storey units. The south side of the patio is a row of identical units with two overlapping dwellings occupying the same plot, both with a small courtyard and access ways facing the inner street. On the main street, the first-floor balconies double as a continuous sidewalk canopy alongside a street front-facing ground floor with mezzanine level. The Pátio is now severely degraded, almost totally empty and boarded up although there are apparently plans to develop it as a “food street” (click in here to see those plans)… Anyway, here’s what Pátio da Claridade looked in October 2025…
the old legation entrances of Great Britain, Japan and France – the first two on Zhengyi Lu (formerly Canal Street) and the French on Dongjiaomin Xiang (Legation Street).
“A large and rare Chinese silk painted green-ground ceremonial ‘Dragon’ banner, Qing Dynasty, 19th century, of triangular form with orange-ground flame cut edges, painted to both sides in gold coloured pigment to depict a scaly four-clawed dragon, chasing a flaming pearl, amidst clouds, 274cm x 243cm
Footnote; The family, by repute, always thought that this had been removed from the Summer Palace, Beijing, in 1860 under the leadership of the 8th Earl of Elgin.”
The description makes sense as does the origin of the flag, taken during the Second Opium War. Banners of the Lord of Suiyuan (a deity worshipped in Hunan Province) – sometimes known as “Junk Flags” (a common name for imperial Chinese dragon flag or a Chinese junk boat flags – were not official items of the Qing imperial army but rather had ritual and ceremonial purposes. It is possible that it came the Old Summer Palace (Yuanmingyuan) and the family/auctioneer have the Yuanmingyuan and the Yiheyuan (Summer Palace) confused. The Yuanmingyuan was indeed looted and burnt by a combined Anglo-French expeditionary force in October 1860. The exact total number of items looted from the Old Summer Palace in 1860 is unknown, but over a million objects are estimated to have been looted
A couple of similar flags are part of the collection of the Royal Museum at Greenwich – here and here….
As with the Chinese screen I noted back in September this flag should of course be returned to China and not sold on for profit by the descendants of the looter and the auction house.
Sorry to hear of the death of Anthony Grey, the Reuters journalist jailed in China for 27 months from 1967 to 1969 while covering the Cultural Revolution. I read his autobiography Hostage in Peking (1970) at uni.
