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

Woman's Bridal Dress: Dragon Jacket, Pleated Skirt, Tabard (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 even though it did not fall under the scope of the Qing Dynasty sumptuary laws. The woman's bridal trousseau contains a short red coat with side-fastening 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. The dragon jacket was worn over a pleated turquoise skirt, with six embroidered panels which feature dragons in the front and back. A three-quarter-length sleeveless tabard completes the outfit, with a front closure, open sides secured by cloth bands, and a colorful tasseled fringe around the hem. Dragons, water, and clouds are embroidered on the silk ground. In addition, a rank badge applied on the front and back shows that the bride married a man of high official rank.

Object facts

• Title: Woman's Bridal Dress: Dragon Jacket, Pleated Skirt, Tabard
• 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

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.