Woman's Bridal Dress, Dragon Jacket (1800s): Art, History and Details

Woman's Bridal Dress, Dragon Jacket (1800s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This three-piece bridal dress includes a dragon jacket, a pleated skirt, and a tabard, a short loose-fitting sleeveless vest. The ensemble reveals the high rank of her husband; it did not fall under the scope of the Qing dynasty sumptuary laws. The woman's bridal trousseau contains a short red coat fastened on the side and wide sleeves. It is decorated with ten dragons and other cosmological motifs commonly found on court dress. The presence of ten dragons indicates that the wife's husband was a high-ranking official.

Object facts

• Title: Woman's Bridal Dress, Dragon Jacket
• Date: 1800s
• Culture: China, Qing dynasty (1644-1911)
• Type: Garment
• Technique: Silk, gilt-metal thread; embroidery
• Dimensions: Overall: 104.2 x 153 cm (41 x 60 1/4 in.)
• Collection: Textiles
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 2005.135.1

Collection credit

Gift of Elizabeth Wade Sedgwick

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.