Cheongsam
China, 1932
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Corset
1880
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Turban ca. 1820 via The Costume Institute of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Caftan
19th century
Turkey
Robe à l’anglaise
1785-1793
The Philadelphia Museum of Art
Suit
1780s
Nasjonalmuseet for Kunst, Arketektur, og Design
Robe à la Polonaise
1780-1785
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Dress
1795
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Dress
1790s
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Rare Photographs of Chinese Women from the 1800sThe captions for these photographs are cringe-worthy. Even the title is cringe-worthy. “Rare” is a word that art auction houses use to ascribe monetary worth to objects.
Hardly any information is given on the photographer (John Thomson) and context is erased in favor of insipid observations, like this:
In this photograph from 1868, the bound feet of a Chinese woman are juxtaposed with a normal, unbound foot. The difference is incredible. The tiny shoe propped up against the wall looks like it was made for a small child, not a full-grown woman. Westerners in China, not least missionaries, criticized the custom. However, in response to such censure from one doctor, a correspondent living in Hangchow wrote, “I think the charge of this custom taking away ‘much from the enjoyment of life’ is somewhat overdrawn. Here in Hangchow the majority of women are small-footed, and certainly do not appear to be so wretchedly situated as the Dr. [Kerr] makes them to be.”
Footbinding, by the way, is not a practice that should be attributed to all Chinese women. The Manchu ruling class explicitly forbade footbinding amongst Manchu women, as it significantly inhibited their equestrian lifestyle. Instead, to imitate the “swaying” walking movement from having “lotus” (not lily) feet, Manchu women wore shoes like these.
While it’s true that the life of Chinese women has been characterized by interiority, it’s hardly opaque, as this website seems to think (“Without a time machine, all we can really do is look at mementos of the era, like these photographs, and wonder at what was.”). Ha ha, no. Just because information cannot be found immediately by googling it or searching for it on Wikipedia, does not mean that no information exists. It’s called looking at historical sources and academic scholarship.
FYI if the picture is a postcard, it’s hardly “rare.” Rather, it would have been one of many constructed images of the East that would have been purchased by tourists and disseminated in the West as authentic pictures from the Orient.
Last but not least, these photographs are not “from the 1800s.” They are all from the late 1800s, the late Qing period, when the empire was in decline and Western powers at the height of their colonial ambitions. The circumstances that some of these photographs were taken in were not candid and innocent.
If the lives of women during the Qing period in China are of actual interest to you (beyond a grotesque surface-level fascination with footbinding), Dorothy Ko’s recent book on footbinding, Charlotte Furth’s career-long investigation of gender and body in China are good places to start. James Cahill’s recent book on depictions of women in vernacular painting in the High Qing period will also be quite informative. Finally, the Bixia Yuanjun cult (Our Lady of Mount Tai) will also provide perspective on female agency and power during the Ming to Qing period.
Of course, there is plenty more information out there, and you’ll be able to find all that (and more) in the bibliographies of any academic book on the subject (by this, I mean a book that is published through a university press). They will all almost certainly reference a significant portion of previous scholarship on the subject. While scholarship on the late 19th-early 20th century period of Chinese history is not nearly as saturated as it could be (due to the general chaotic nature of the period), a lot of great research is being done on the subject now. Just look at all these dissertations!
Do not engage in meaningless speculation under the guise of genuine interest. It is intellectually lazy, and actually, just reflects how uninterested you are in the subject. And stop with the Oppressed Other Women rhetoric, it’s embarrassing.
Coat
Ottoman Empire, Turkey
Silk edged with metal wire
18th century
Japanese Armor Types Illustrated c. 1868 via The New York Public Library
These are wonderful! Lets go through them shall we?
The first image in the top left appears to be a fairly straightforward retainer, wearing the jinbaori surcoat, no chest armor of any kind, kote (the armor around the forearms) and kusazuri which is the skirt armor.
Below that appears to be some manner of naginata wielding soldier, he wears an eboshi (that black hat), he is likely not a noble as generally theirs were starched to stand up straight. He likely wears the simple Haramaki style armor, wherein the ‘Do’ or breastplates are connected to the skirting.
Below him is your basic Ashigaru harquebusier, Ashigaru being the core of the medieval Japanese army, composed of low ranking soldiers outfitted with pikes, flintlocks and bows and arrows, they were the predominant group on the field. He wears a cheap and simple to produce set of armor, the yokohagi-do with accompanying suso-ita, basically a breastplate and skirt to protect the upper legs. His hat is a simple jingasa.
The large fellow in the center likely depicts an early samurai (12th century or thereabouts), wearing oyoroi style armor. The armor is made from interlocking pieces of lacquered wood, later these pieces would be replaced with metal. It was boxy, and stiff. His helmet is another way to place him as 12th century commander as the kuwagata are quite large, that being the wings sprouting from the front of the helmet.
Below that we have a noble archer, potentially a more classical version of the samurai, from Japans earlier history where combat was often decided through individual duels. He has a peculiar style of sheath for his sword, which was likely covered in hair, giving it that bushy look.
Beside him to the right in the green and purple is what I believe to be the court dress of an Ashikaga shogun, the Ashikaga being the ruling shogunate for many years before collapsing into ruin. This could also potentially be the regular dress for any shogun, up to and including the Tokugawa shogunate of the 17-19th centuries.
I believe the noble samurai in the top right is wearing a haramaki style armor, which became popular after the oyoroi, and was commonly used up to the 15th century.
The last two are somewhat harder to place, likely representing the changes between the 15th and 16th century styles of armor, where the helmets became more ornate in some areas, but less wide, and the armor grew more and more flexible.
Japanese Armor Types Illustrated c. 1868 via The New York Public Library
