One side of this silk purse is embroidered on a white background and the other side on a dark brown one. The decoration is the same on both sides. Depicted are two crickets, lotus blossoms, osmanthus flowers, a leaf which resembles the leaf of a gourd, a rice stalk and an unknown elongated leaf. A cricket’s name (guoguo) is close to the pronunciation of the word ‘Official’ (guan’er). Lotus flowers symbolize Continuous Harmony. A gourd represents Blessings, Osmanthus flowers express a wish for Distinguished sons and a Rice stalk is called ‘he’ which is also a pun for Harmony. Usually purses like this come in pairs but we only found this one. We assume that it belonged to an official which explains the crickets. The purse dates from the Qing period (1644 – 1912) and was found in Hong Kong in 1990. The Peking-stitch embroidery is stunning. Width 9.8 cm. Height 7.8 cm. Thickness 1 cm.