AN IMPERIAL EDICTDATED TO THE TWENTY-FOURTH DAY OF THE TWELFTH MONTH OF THE TWENTY-FOURTH YEAR OF KANGXI REIGN, CORRESPONDING TO 1686 AND OF THE PERIODThe edict is mounted as a handscroll and written on silk brocade woven with a pattern of cranes and ruyi clouds. The text opens with a four-character brocade title in a vertical line reading, fengtian gaoming, ‘bymand of Heaven’, flanked by a pair of dragons, followed by an inscription written in Chinese characters from right to left, and repeated from left to right in Manchu, conferring posthumous titles to the great-grand parents of Huang Gong, an imperial guard at Xiaoling, dated to the twenty-fourth day of the twelfth month of the twenty-fourth year of Kangxi, corresponding to 1686.Silk brocade: 193 7/8 in. (481.2 cm.) long