The Narratives of Embroidery Across Time
In the late-Ming period– before the Qing Dynasty– clothing was mostly fashioned and embellished through weaving (Silverstein, 77). Intricate patterns and designs could be created, but the more complicated the design, the heavier the pieces could become. The dominating style started to change at the start of the 17th century when a technique called embroidery, which existed previously, was popularized and became more dominant as production and distribution increased. Embroidery still plays a large role in current customs like weddings, funerals, and festivals, and it is difficult to say for certain whether that would be without its notable presence in history (Silverstein, 77).
Figure 1: Colored woodblock Print, Shuangmei tu 雙美圖 (Two Beauties), from the Daoguang period (1820–1850)
It is important to note that our view on the embroidery craft is tainted at multiple levels. First and foremost, the available literature written in the Qing period highlights information centering elite and imperial perspectives on embroidery. This obscures the stories of individuals and businesses involved in the process, especially the women. Secondly, today's narrative is guided not by those who wrote about the craft, but by those now telling the story. One such narrative commonly pushed by western museum curators is the "trousseau narrative" (Silverstein, 78), meaning that when museums display embroidered dresses, they would highlight stories of the women personally handcrafting the pieces for their trousseau– the clothing component of a bride's dowry (Watson et al., 7). Imagery of this was quite common, as depicted in the hand-painted print to the right that displays two women, likely embroidering a cherry blossom on a veranda. The location of the women in the print fits the pedaled narrative that women do this "leisurely" activity while enjoying nature or within their boudoir. Of course, the women did embroidery for these and other reasons, particularly earlier in the Qing Dynasty before large quantities were produced outside of the home. Still, they were by no means the only accounts of embroidery production. Ironically, many of the pieces on display are likely to be those produced commercially (Silverstein, 79).
Before the commercialization shift, embroidery was a craft done mainly by women or by individual families. One high-profile family was the Gu family, recognized for their elaborate embroidery (Silverstein, 82). It is not just on clothing, but their own art or recreated paintings and calligraphy. The women established the family's reputation, showing the early possibilities that women had to support themselves and their families.
The actions done by families like Gu paved the way for embroidery to become its own market. There was a shift from seeing embroidery as solely a female activity to commercialized workshops potentially consisting of all genders in the mid to late Qing. The transition can also be attributed to the general public's increased use of embroidered products. Expansion of customs like burial dress and religious ceremonial clothing or increased popularity in theater troupes bolstered the range of consumers outside just the elite (Silverstein, 83). The emergence of embroidery guilds is also a vital indicator of this change. The early guilds were formed from the tailors within the community and were a way for commoners to band together to protect from price cutting and create standard wages (Silverstein, 83). Later, artisans formed guilds and often bought property to conduct their work. Interestingly, even though embroidery is regularly associated with women's work, the guilds rarely mentioned gender unless to bar women from entering guild property (Silverstein, 86). One guild, the Three Emperors, had strict rules surrounding gender, such as men producing men's work, and women producing women's work meaning a piece must be started and finished by the same gender (Silverstein, 86). These restrictions were likely in place because male artisans, who began most guilds, were threatened by the women in the field. Their reasoning was that women do embroidery as a leisure activity and not for commercialized production, so any involvement by them would contaminate the products. Some guilds followed this line of thinking while others had a family workshop model where both genders worked side by side, although, even within this model, there were separations between women's and men's work (Silverstein, 87-88).
The actual embroidered products produced by these guilds were very diverse. They could range from full garments to accessories to decoration of all kinds. Some specialized in specific subsections within the embroidery craft. For example, the Hexi Village specialized in gold-encroached embroidered rank badges for officials and their wives (Silverstein, 113). The rank badge from the early 18th century, seen to the left bellow, is a prime example of what one can look like. The center figure is a heron which can mean "may you follow a path of continuing promotion" (Chinasage). The badge is embroidered with silk, feather, and metallic thread on silk satin and was either handled by the official or worn on the official's wife's sleeve or skirt (Silverstein, 113). The print to the right of the badge depicts women working on rank badges, likely in a family workshop setting, with the absence of men. This, with supporting literature, shows that women were trusted with expensive material like gold thread and unique to embroidered craft were the idealized version of who the artisans were often represented by.
The materials used in manufacturing could vary depending on what's available or the purpose of the projects. Some commonly used supplies were silk, linen, gauze-like fabrics, gold, silk, and various dyed threads. The growth of the embroidery economy stimulated other sectors related to embroidery like silk production and even created new specializations of jobs (Silverstein, 100). While embroidered products were more commonly used in the late Qing period, they were still relatively expensive. Outside the elite, the products were mainly only purchased by those in the middle classes, such as merchants, clerks, and other artisans. For example, embroidery that contained gold and silver tissue could range between 200-300 pounds, and even common dress would cost 10 pounds (Silverstein, 77).
The gender distinction within the embroidery craft is unique in that it both erases and hyper focuses the women's roles within it. The business contributions they may have made were rarely recorded. They were often explicitly left out of written literature on workshops– even when they were an integral part of them. Yet, at the same time, embroidery is described as an essential part of what a lady is supposed to do and provide.
Works Cited
“Bird Symbolism in Chinese Art 鸟 Niǎo.” Birds in Chinese Symbolism, https://www.chinasage.info/symbols/birds.htm#XLXLSymHeron.
SILBERSTEIN, Rachel. “Workshop, Boudoir, Village: PRODUCING EMBROIDERED DRESS.” A Fashionable Century, University of Washington Press, Washington,
2020, pp. 77–115.
Wang, Anita Xiaoming. The Idealised Lives of Women. Vol. 73, École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 2018.
Watson, Rubie S., and Patricia Buckley Ebrey, editors Marriage and Inequality in Chinese Society. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1991 1991.
http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft6p3007p1/
Referenced Photos
Figure 1: Two Beauties (Shuangmei tu 雙美圖), Daoguang period (1820–1850), Qing dynasty, Yangliuqing. Coloured woodblock print and hand-painted,
88.0 × 59.0 cm. Dashu Art Gallery, Feng Jicai Institute of Literature and Art, Tianjin University. After Feng 2008, p. 83.
Figure 2: “Rank Badge with egret” The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Bequest of William Christian Paul, 1929. 30.75.916
Figure 3: Embroidering the Rank Badges (Xiu bu fu), one of a pair of Yangliuqing woodblock prints, Guangxu period. 61 × 26 cm. China National Art
Museum.
