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selection. If chosen, the girls, aged between twelve and fifteen, would live inside the Forbidden City until they were twenty-five when they were “retired” and were free to leave if they so wished.

      Another group of women in the palace were the daughters of the imperial bondservants who took care of the personal duties of the emperor and his family. At whim, the emperor could also select a girl from this group to be his concubine or even his next wife (Fig. 50). Marriage between bannermen and bondservants was forbidden, but sometimes bondservant’s daughters were brought into the palace as maidservants, and could be promoted into the imperial harem. For instance, Empress Xiaogong was the daughter of a bondservant, who became a maidservant, and went on to gain the favor of the Kangxi Emperor as a third-rank imperial consort. She bore him three sons and three daughters, and eventually became Empress Dowager once her son ascended the throne as the Yongzheng Emperor.

      The emperor’s consorts fell into eight ranks: the empress was pre-eminent, followed by the huang guifei or first-rank imperial consort, and on down to the seventh rank. Manchu women held no official role in the government, but an empress dowager could act as regent during a ruler’s minority, and held even more power than the reigning emperor himself on occasion, due to the importance attached to filial piety. For example, the Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908), co-regent for her son and then for her nephew, virtually controlled the government of China between 1860 and 1908. Other women’s appearances in public were limited to occasions when they accompanied their husband, though there were some ceremonial events when women from the imperial family would officiate in their own right.

Court Robes

      Little is known about early imperial female robes before 1759 when court and official dress became standardized. Following standardization, women’s clothing, like that for men, was separated into official and non-official, and subdivided further according to degree of formality. Rules for clothing also followed the seasons, and changes were made from silk gauze in summer, through to silk and satin, to padded or fur-lined for winter.

      Official formal dress worn by women at court comprised a full-length garment called a chao pao, with a square-cut lapel opening and projecting shoulder epaulettes, the latter thought to be a pre-Qing costume feature for protecting the wearer’s arms from bad weather. As with men’s robes, the ground color and arrangement of dragons indicated rank. Over the top of the chao pao women wore a full-length sleeveless vest called a chao gua, which opened down the center; its antecedent was a sleeveless vest of trapezoidal shape worn by the Ming empresses, although the deeply cut armholes and sloping shoulder seams appear to be derived from an animal skin construction. Under the chao pao, a skirt made from a single length of silk with eighteen pleats fell from a plain waistband. The skirt was embroidered with small roundels along the hem, filled with the shou character, flowers, and dragons. A hat and a large flaring collar (pi ling) completed the outfit. Whereas the colors of the women’s robes matched those of their husbands, the daughters of the emperor and lower-ranking consorts wore a greenish yellow (xiang se) robe.

      The various types of seasonal chao pao ranged from thick, heavy winter costumes to light summery ones. The first type of winter chao pao comprised a long gown with projecting epaulets, embellished all over with front-facing and profile dragons, with wave motifs at the hem, but without the li shui diagonal stripes until almost the end of the dynasty. Bands of coiling dragons decorated the upper part of the long sleeves above the plain dark lower sleeves, which ended in horse-hoof cuffs. The robe was lined with white fur and edged with sable. The second style of winter court robe was very similar to the men’s chao pao, being made in two sections with a pleated skirt attached to a jacket similar in construction to the first style. A four-lobed yoke pattern of dragons extended over the chest, back, and shoulders, with a band of dragons above the seam of the top and skirt. Another band of dragons was placed on the lower part of the skirt. The third style was similar to the first, but with a split in the center of the skirt at the back, which was trimmed with black fox fur. Unlike the first two styles, this style was permissible for Manchu women other than those belonging to the imperial family (Fig. 51).

      Fig. 49 First semiformal style five-clawed dragon robe in orange silk, embroidered in satin stitch with nine dragons couched in gold thread. Orange was regarded as an off-shade of imperial yellow and restricted to use by the emperor’s consorts of the second and third degree and the wives of the emperor’s sons. The fact that the lower dragons have not clasped the pearl suggests that the robe was made for an imperial daughter-in-law or consort, mid-19th c.

      Fig. 50 Imperial princess wearing a court vest over a court robe, both edged in fur, with a flared collar, winter court hat, diadem, torque, three necklaces, and pointed kerchief.

      Fig. 51 Woodblock printed page from the Regulations showing the back and front views of the third style winter court robe.

      Fig. 52 Painting on silk from the Regulations showing the first style summer court robe in yellow, belonging to an empress or empress dowager.

      Summer court robes were of two types. The first was made of two sections, like the second type of winter robe (Fig. 52). The second summer style was identical to the third kind of winter robe, but made of gauze or satin and edged with brocade (Fig. 55).

      Three different styles of full-length, sleeveless chao gua court vests made of dark blue silk edged with brocade were worn over the chao pao. The first style was made in three sections: an upper part, a section from waist to knee, and a section from knee to hem (Fig. 53). Five horizontal bands embroidered with four- or five-clawed dragons and lucky symbols, depending on rank, encircled the vest. The second type of chao gua was similar to the second style of chao pao, with a sleeveless body part joined to a pleated skirt (Fig. 56). This is very rare and, like the first, was worn only by members of the imperial family. The third style, decorated with ascending dragons presented in profile as well as wave motifs and, later, li shui, was acceptable wear for women of all ranks (Fig. 54). Lower-ranking noblewomen and officials’ wives wore either the third style of winter chao pao or the second style of summer chao pao. This was worn with the third style of chao gua and the pi ling collar (Fig. 57).

      Fig. 53 Wanrong, wife of the Xuantong Emperor (r. 1909–12), taken at the time of their marriage in 1922, wearing the first style court vest, court hat, flared collar, three court necklaces, together with the pointed kerchief attached to the button on her court vest, a diadem, torque, earrings, and hat finial with three phoenixes.

      Fig. 54 Princess Su, whose husband gave his palace to the Christians

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