nature. Four generations have gathered to celebrate the birthday of the family matriarch, a widow. Her three grandsons bring nine ruyi, a symbol of wish-blessings, to mark the occasion. In so doing, as with the prominent dragon-adorned carpet, this wealthy Manchu officials’ family was following court fashions, highlighting the relationship between imperial and urban consumption.22 The focal matriarch is accompanied by a daughter-in-law by her side; her two sons sit at the table to the left, wearing formal dress (li fu) of rank badge surcoats (bu fu) and winter hats (ji fu guan).23 Three younger men, presumably their sons, stand to their right, wearing the rank badges of middling-level civil officials.24 Three younger women, their wives, stand to their right. Six young children punctuate the piece, each attended by a maid, whose dress and stance mark her as inferior. Rather than size (a conventional visual strategy in Chinese painting to convey social status), here it is facial exposure: whereas the family members, both adults and children, are shown in full-frontal poses, the maids are all shown immersed in caring for their charges, with their faces turned away to varying degrees.
FIGURE 1.2. An anonymous family portrait of four generations of a Manchu family in late Qing Beijing, ca. 1853. Ink and mineral pigments on paper, 185.5 x 384 cm. Mactaggart Art Collection (2007.23.1), University of Alberta Museums. Gift of Sandy and Cécile Mactaggart.
Despite the careful structuring, the piece is also concerned with leisure and intimacy. Even while the composition communicates a balanced figural order, it seeks to flout it: the maid peeking out oddly at the side, the children bringing a “hundred sons at play” (bai zi tu) sense of controlled chaos. But the figure who most obviously breaks down that balanced structure is the single Han woman, on the far right, wearing a jacket and skirt, rather than full-length robe. This ethnic sartorial contrast is only manifest to us because, unlike the men, none of the women are wearing official dress, but instead wear an unregulated form of dress (bian fu).25 That is to say, it is the women’s fashionable dress that enables the artist to express ethnic difference.
When the Manchus defeated the Han Chinese Ming dynasty and established the Qing dynasty, they initiated what would be nearly three hundred years of interaction between Manchu and Han dress, articulated through imperial regulations but implemented and interpreted in both official and domestic settings. The primary signifier separating Manchu and Han women was that the former wore long robes, while the latter wore divided outfits of upper jackets and lower skirts. The Manchu writer Zhenjun (1857–1920) explained: “In Manchu custom, women’s jackets are joined to the skirt, and do not separate the upper and lower; this is the ancient system.”26 Differential components of this long robe also evolved, such as the matixiu horseshoe cuffs on the pao robe (worn beneath the gua gown), which apparently referenced Manchu nomadic culture. Matixiu featured in three of the four dress categories worn by Manchu court women: ceremonial or formal court dress (li fu), auspicious court dress (ji fu), and informal court dress (chang fu). Only the last category, leisure clothing (bian fu), did not feature this silhouette, and only it was unregulated by the Qing court, worn as it was for everyday and leisure activities.27 Accordingly, it evolved more quickly and in closer dialogue with Han fashions. But this evolution took place in the face of numerous attempts to define and dictate what both Han and Manchu women should wear.
The sartorial revolution ushered in by the 1644 Manchu dynastic ascent took hold slowly for women: Ming styles remained dominant for some time. The styles described by late Ming–early Qing novels such as The Plum in the Golden Vase and Marriage Destinies to Awaken the World (Xingshi yinyuan chuan)—loose, center-fastening jackets (duijin shan, dui chenshan) worn with narrow skirts (qunzi); long sleeveless jackets (bijia), or the beizi (long, buttonless, center-opening jackets with side slits)— can still be found in mid-Qing depictions.28 Although the painting in figure 1.3 dates to the mid-Qing, the artist has chosen to clothe the enticingly languid courtesans in late-Ming styles, reflecting its enduring prestige: the women wear shan and beizi jackets with long flowing lines, paired with slim skirts, two button-fastened collars, and narrow damask or brocade trimming leading down from the collar. The artist has highlighted their textile designs of woven roundels and floral scrolls as the primary fashion focus.
These were the styles confronted by the Manchu emperors when they ascended to the throne and faced, like all rulers, the decision as to what kind of clothing system they wanted. In China, clothing has always been a metaphor for the civilized world. Chinese civilization is traced back to the moment when the legendary founding emperors—Yao, Shun, and Yu—“allowed the upper and lower garments to hang down and the world was in order” (chui yishang gai quzhu qian kun er tian xia zhi).29 From this point on, the establishment of dynastic rule was bound up in the clothing systems it regulated, and the distinction between the upper and lower garment became an important symbolic assertion. Like all dynastic rulers, the Manchus sought to use clothing as an implement of power and control, and like all non-Han rulers, they sought to construct a clothing system that would simultaneously assert their right to the throne as Chinese emperors and still preserve their ethnic identity and culture. The lessons of their Liao (907–1125), Jin (1115–1234), and Yuan (1271–1368) predecessors—whom they viewed as having miscalculated the balance between sinicization and cultural preservation—evidently weighed heavily. As the Qianlong emperor cautioned, “one must not speak lightly of changing dress and headwear”—to do so was to forget the ancestors, endanger the sacrifices, and weaken the dynasty.30 From Hong Taiji (1626–1643) through to the Jiaqing emperor (r. 1796–1820), imperial edicts alerted the Manchu people not to “abandon our ancestors’ traditions!”31 But while they aimed to control through sumptuary regulation, these same texts reveal the tension of sustaining Manchu identity, a tension particularly central to women’s dress—a touchstone of political stability and moral wellbeing.
FIGURE 1.3. Six beauties adopt various leisurely poses as they recline, stretch, and play musical instruments in a wellfurnished set of rooms. Women in a Brothel, seventeenth or eighteenth century. Painting on paper. Emil Preetorius Collection, Museum Fünf Kontinente (77-11-23).
Over the course of the Qing dynasty, the Manchu court developed detailed regulatory frameworks of hierarchically organized, sartorial rights for the imperial family, nobility, officials, and commoners, as defined by color, material, motif and pattern. These texts focus on clothing worn on official and court occasions; ostensibly they express little interest in controlling the dress of either Han or Manchu women outside those arenas.32 But studying these sumptuary regulations alongside objects and images reveals their limited reach, and hence the necessary supplementation in the form of imperial edicts and moralistic discourse, which we will examine shortly.
The tomb of Kangxi’s third daughter, Princess Rongxian (1673–1728), excavated in 1966, provides some of the earliest surviving women’s garments of the Qing period (contemporaneous with the Prince Guo robe). Rongxian was married to the Mongolian prince Wu Ergun (d. 1721), who gained Kangxi’s gratitude during the 1690 Battle of Wulan Butong, and was sent to Inner Mongolia at the age of nineteen. Her tomb contained hundreds of objects, including multiple garments: ten were worn upon her body, but only three survived, the outermost layer, a pearl-embroidered yellow dragon roundel robe probably worn for summer court dress; the second layer—a butterfly-embroidered informal robe; and the innermost layer, an antique motif–embroidered informal robe (fig. 1.4; see also chap. 5). All three robes show early Qing imperial styles: a round neck, right overlapping lapel, straight narrow sleeves (ping xiu) that covered the wrist, and a slit-less skirt.33
FIGURE 1.4. An antique motif–embroidered silk informal robe, tomb of Princess Rongxian. L 147 cm,