Sleeveless garment (1800s): Art, History and Details

Sleeveless garment (1800s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This loose-fitting bamboo vest is a summer undershirt, made of an estimated 3,490 fine bamboo tubes. The overall structure of the vest is held together with cotton thread. Such vests were worn under an outer garment to allow the air to circulate and protect the outer garment from soilage, especially in the hot and humid climate of southern China. Textual evidence indicates that officials during the 1500s in Jiangnan wore bamboo vests from Jiangsu province, one of the production centers.

Object facts

• Title: Sleeveless garment
• Date: 1800s
• Culture: China, Qing dynasty (1644-1911)
• Type: Garment
• Technique: Bamboo beads strung together in diamond and hexagon patterns; edges in plain weave cotton
• Dimensions: Overall: 56.5 x 56.5 cm (22 1/4 x 22 1/4 in.)
• Collection: Textiles
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1915.410

A detail from the museum

According to Nhat Quyen Nguyen, CMA graduate intern in textile conservation, this garment is made of at least 3,490 cut bamboo pieces.

Collection credit

Educational Purchase Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Garrett, Valery M. Chinese Clothing: An Illustrated Guide. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1994.
• Garrett, Valery M. Chinese Dress: From the Qing Dynasty to the Present Day. 2019.
• Griswold, William, Xiaofei Tian, Richard Von Glahn, Feng Zhao, S. J. Vainker, Masaaki Itakura, Jiang Wu, et al. China’s Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta. Edited by Clarissa Von Spee. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2023.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.