We have recently announced our multi-million pound funding that will bring new galleries and spaces to Manchester Museum; a large grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, support from Treasury and significant awards and donations by key individuals, Trusts and Foundations. This capital redevelopment will see the opening of the Dr Lee Kai Hung Chinese Culture Gallery, through which we will explore understanding between cultures, the rich cultural heritage and stories of Chinese communities in the region and the links between Manchester and China.
Today’s Story from the Museum Floor, by Fang from the Visitor Team, is part of a series of blog posts exploring some of the stories behind the objects currently on display, which connect with the themes and ideas of the forthcoming galleries and spaces – hello future!
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Standing in front of the ‘Journey’ case in the Manchester Gallery, it would be hard to miss the Chinese Manchu headdress and its pictorial introduction. You might at first be attracted by its beautiful jewellery-like decoration, but then you might think: who wore it? Who is the lady in the picture? And how did it come to Manchester?
Let’s have a closer look at this Manchu headdress, which was featured in the BBC’s ‘A History of the World’…
Manchu Headdress (Dian Zi, 钿子)
The Manchu people originated from part of Northeast China called Manchuria (满洲). A Manchu clan, the Aisin Gioro, founded the Qing dynasty (1644 – 1912), the final ruling dynasty before the establishment of the Republic of China.
The Manchu women of the Qing Dynasty were known as the ‘Golden Head and Natural Feet’ women. ‘Natural Feet’ means they did not bind their feet into the ‘Lotus Feet’ as did the ancient Han women, and ‘Golden Head’ refers to the rich decoration of the Manchu headdress.
Manchu Headdress (Manchester Museum Collection Online, 0.5390/A © Manchester Museum, University of Manchester)
This headdress is one type of Manchu headdress called Dian Zi (钿子).
Dian Zi in the Manchu language is literally translated as a “hat ring”. This “hat ring” referred to the kind of hat supported by a circular iron wire in its rim. The base of a Dian Zi is usually made of thin rattan strips or wires wrapped with black silk, and woven into check or coin patterns, or other auspicious designs. Gemstones and pearls are fixed onto the hat base in various auspicious patterns. Dian Zi is usually worn by noble women for special occasions, like weddings and birthday ceremonies, and traditional festivals.
The headdress on display at Manchester Museum is decorated with various colourful gemstones, pearls and coral. It is covered with enamel work representing flowers, leaves, butterflies and more. The blue colour comes from inlaid kingfisher’s feathers which, in the Qing dynasty, almost exclusively affordable by the imperial court and very rich families. The headdress also has a front fringe. The overall level of decoration relates to the class of the wearer – the kingfisher feathers and fringe give this headdress more value.
Central piece of decoration, Manchu Headdress, Manchester Museum
Can you spot two bats in the central piece of decoration of this headdress? The bat has been appreciated as a symbol of happiness and good fortune in Chinese culture since ancient times – for further discussion of this, have a look at my blog post China from CHINA.
When worn, a Dian Zi can be further decorated by the insertion of flowers and hairpins. Interestingly, I came across a pair of hair pins (possibly Chinese phoenix design) and a pair of dragon earrings in our Museum’s online collection. They have a similar decorative style as the headdress, and were donated by the same person on the same date. They are very likely to be accessories to this very headdress!
‘Phoenix’ hair pins and Dragon earrings (Manchester Museum Collection Online, 0.5390/B.1-2 and 0.5390.B.7-8. © Manchester Museum, University of Manchester)
Empress Dowager Cixi
Fashionista, Dragon Lady and Wonder Woman
Manchester Museum’s 19th century Manchu headdress would have been worn by a noble Manchu woman of the Qing dynasty.
Well, the lady in the photograph on the Manchester Gallery was not only a noble Manchu lady, she was also one of the most powerful women in Chinese history, Empress Dowager Cixi (慈禧太后). She was the regent who effectively ruled China in the late Qing dynasty, as the ‘Reign Behind the Curtains’ (a similar saying to ‘the power behind the throne’), for 47 years from 1861 until her death in 1908. This period of history has been the subject of, and the backdrop to many films, including 57 Days at Peking, Burning of the Imperial Palace, Reign Behind a Curtain, and The Last Emperor.
Left: Ceremonial headdress likely worn by Cixi. The small phoenixes emerging from the surface represent the empress © The Walters Art Museum. (Source: Wikimedia). Right: two sides of a ‘Dian Zi’ headdress, China, 19th century © Victoria and Albert Museum.
Her name, Cixi (慈禧) literally means ‘Motherly and Auspicious’. At that time, she was addressed as ‘Old Master Buddha’ (老佛爷), a term used for all the Qing dynasty emperors. She is also known as the ‘Dragon Lady’ (real power) wearing a phoenix crown (a symbol of the empress), representing the two sides of this wonder woman.
Leaving her political life to the historians, the parts of her story that we will focus on here are those of women’s costume and modernisation in the Qing dynasty.
Cixi enjoyed dressing up, and being featured in paintings and photographs! The Palace Museum in Beijing has more than 100 photographs showing her in many different lavish robes and dresses.
Left: Cixi, c. 1903, with her hair arranged in the traditional Qing dynasty style, ‘Two Side Bun’ (兩把头), i.e. wound into two buns, one on each side of the head. She is seen here inserting a flower hairpin. Right: Cixi, c. 1890, with her hair arranged in the popular Qing dynasty style, ‘Da La Chi’ (大拉翅), that was said to be of her own invention (Source: SCMP).
With her increasing status, Cixi needed to wear more and more jewellery in her hair. But her own hair was soft and thin due to hair loss. As small hair buns could not hold heavy jewellery, she invented the ‘Da La Chi’, wing-like headdress made of a wire frame and cloth base, and covered with black satin or velvet. The ‘Da La Chi’ soon became popular among Manchu court ladies, and became an icon of oriental charm in the eyes of the painters from the West.
Left: Oil painting by Hubert Vos (1905), Court Painter of Empress Dowager Cixi. Right: Empress Dowager Cixi, by Katharine Carl (1904). (Source: Smithsonian Museum of American Art)
Can you spot a dragon and a phoenix in the backgrounds of these paintings?
Empress Dowager Cixi and women of the American Legation, in the Summer Palace in Beijing, 1903-1904. (Source: Wikimedia)
Lastly, and worthy of mention, in 1902, Cixi issued an anti-foot binding edict, which eventually and greatly changed the life of Han women. This is just one of the great reforms introduced by this powerful woman of Chinese history.
The Donor, China and Manchester
Frederic Wood-Jones, photographed in 1912. (Image courtesy of Sutton Archives)
The headdress, hairpins and earrings were all donated to the Museum in 1939 by Mrs Wood-Jones, who bought them in China. She was a Fellow of the Zoological Society and the Royal Geographical Society, and her husband was Frederic Wood-Jones FRS (1879-1954), a British naturalist, anatomist and anthropologist.
Frederic Wood-Jones was one of the founding fathers of modern physical anthropology, and known for his work in the field of human evolution. He took respected teaching posts at Universities in England, Australia, Hawaii and China.
In 1932-3, he was the temporary director of anatomy at the Peking (now Beijing) Union Medical College (北京协和医学院). Presumably the headdress was acquired in China at that time.
This institution was initially founded in 1906 by British and American missionaries and later developed by the Rockefeller Foundation. It remains the top medical school in China today.
Peking Union Medical College, then and now. Top: Rockefeller Institute in Peking, c. 1924 (Source: Bundesarchiv, Bild 137-009049 / Salzmann, E.v. / CC-BY-SA 3.0). Below: Peking Union Medical College in Beijing, 2010. (Source: Ivan Walsh on Flickr).
In late 1938, Wood-Jones took the Chair of Anatomy at the University of Manchester. Shortly after he and his wife settled in Manchester, they donated their anthropology collection to the University Museum.
School of Medical Sciences, University of Manchester, 2018. (Photo: Fang Zong)
This 19th century Chinese Manchu headdress came a long way from China to Manchester. With all its beauty and background history, I hope you have enjoyed this story of the Chinese Manchu headdress in the Manchester Museum.
Fang Zong
With special thanks to Stephen T. Welsh (Curator of Living Cultures) and Bryan Sitch (Deputy Head of Collection, and Curator of Archaeology). Please visit their blogs, Mancultural and Ancient Worlds.
#MMHelloFuture
References:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/mGZwplOlTLS35mDW4oZvJg
https://baike.baidu.com/item/钿子
https://kknews.cc/zh-cn/culture/3llvoeo.html
http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4c26e27b0102wykx.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empress_Dowager_Cixi
https://nn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cixi
http://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/people-events/article/2119973/woman-who-ruled-china-what-you-didnt-know-about
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_binding
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_Wood_Jones
http://www.epsomandewellhistoryexplorer.org.uk/WoodJonesF.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peking_Union_Medical_College
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