A Fur Headdress for Women in Sixteenth-Century China

Abstract

The subject of this paper is a style of fur headdress for women that became fashionable in the sixteenth century and on into the seventeenth, in late Ming China. It has hitherto received little scholarly attention. In Chinese, it is called wotu’er and this can be translated as ‘crouching rabbit’, ‘crouching cottontail’ or ‘crouching lapin’. We know that it was one of the luxury goods of its day, worn as a mark of high social status and wealth. This essay examines the shape of the headdress and how it was worn, as well as its material and price. How long was it in fashion and why did it become fashionable in the first place? The relevance of nomadic dress in influencing women’s garments in the sixteenth century will also be considered, as will the shift in the use of fur from functional to decorative.

Keywords:

• Chinese women’s hats
• late Ming China
• wotu’er
• material culture of China
• Chinese fur trade

Acknowledgements

I should like to thank in particular Verity Wilson for all her helpful comments and advice on this article. I should also like to thank Mr Yu Bing for helping me to locate key books for my research and Alexandra Kim for her help in formatting the images.

Notes

¹ Chu Renhuo, Jian hu ji (A Collection of Anecdotes in the Ming and Qing Dynasties 坚瓠集), (Hangzhou: Zhejiang renmin chubanshe, 1986), p. 111.

² Shen Congwen, Zhongguo gudai fushi yanjiu (The History of Chinese Dress 中国古代服饰研究), (Shanghai: Shanghai shudian chubanshe, 1997), p. 465.

³ Shen Congwen, p. 467.

⁴ Huang Nengfu and Chen Juanjuan, Zhongguo fuzhuangshi (The History of Chinese Costume 中国服装史), (Beijing: Zhongguo lüyou chubanshe, 1995), p. 301.

⁵ Gao Chunming and Zhou Xun, Zhongguo lidai funü zhuangshi (The Adornment of Chinese Women in Past Dynasties 中国历代妇女妆饰), (Shanghai and Hong Kong: Xuelin chubanshe and SDX Joint Publishing Company, 1997), p. 112.

⁶ My thanks to Yu Bing for helping me to find the picture book: Qinggong zhenbao bimeitu. Without it, I would not have been able to observe the style of wotu’er so clearly.

⁷ David Tod Roy, The Plum in the Golden Vase (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), Vol. 2, p. 5.

⁸ Ye Mengzhu, Yue shi bian (The Notes of Observing the World 阅世编), (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1981), p. 179. It seems there are some mistakes in the punctuation here. I have corrected them in my quotation.

⁹ Xu Dishan, Jin sanbainian lai de Zhongguo nüzhuang（近三百年来的中国女装）. This refers to the bound volume of newspaper of Fu Xihua. I quote from the forty-second publication.

¹⁰ Qinggong zhenbao bimeitu, published in the Republican period, assembled 200 paintings from The Plum in the Golden Vase by an anonymous court artist in the Qing dynasty. There are two versions of Qinggong zhenbao bimeitu, one with five volumes and another with four. This essay quotes from the set with four volumes. It is said that it was published by Qizhen gongshangshe.

¹¹ Ye Mengzhu, Yue shi bian, p. 176.

¹² Anon., Tianshui bingshan lu (A Record of the Waters of Heaven Melting the Iceberg 天水冰山录, 2 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985 edition), p. 181.

¹³ Li Dou, Yangzhou huafanglu (The Local Conditions and Customs in Yangzhou 扬州画舫录), 9 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2007 edition), p. 130.

¹⁴ David Hawkes, The Story of the Stone, 1 (London: Penguin, 1973), pp. 159–60.

¹⁵ Xi Zhousheng, Xingshi yinyuan zhuan (A Marriage that Awakens the World 醒世姻缘传), (Jinan: Qilu shushe,1980 edition), chapter 1, p. 10.

¹⁶ Shen Congwen in Zhongguo gudai fushi yanjiu refers to Zhaojun tao as ‘cloaks’, which, I believe, is a misreading.

¹⁷ An excavated headband was found in the grave of an imperial doctor, Gu Dongchuan, Shanghai Mingmu (Ming Tombs in Shanghai 上海明墓 ), ed. by He Jiying (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 2009), p. 62.

¹⁸ Dong Han, Sangang shilue (The Notes on Conditions and Customs from the later Ming Dynasty to the Early Qing Dynasty 三冈识略) (Shenyang: Liaoning jiaoyu chubanshe, 2000 edition), p. 205.

¹⁹ Yang Zhishui, Gushiwen mingwu xinzheng (The Arguments of the Things in Ancient Poems 古诗文名物新证, 1 (Beijing: Zijincheng chubanshe, 2010 edition), 194–95.

²⁰ My thanks to Wang Kui for helpful advice on this view.

²¹ Fur coats are not classed as ornaments, so are not discussed in this essay.

²² Roy, The Plum in the Golden Vase, vol. 1, p. 408.

²³ Wang Qi and Wang Siyi, Sancai tuhui (The Image and Text Relate to the Universe, the Earth and the Humans 三才图会), (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1988 edition), p. 1535.

²⁴ Henry Serruys, ‘Sino-Mongol Relations During the Ming: Trade Relations: The Horse Fairs (1400–-1600)’, Mélanges Chinois et Bouddhiques, 17 (Brussels, 1975).

²⁵ Zhongguo mingchao dangan zonghui (The Chinese Imperial Archives in the Ming Dynasty 中国明朝档案总汇), 100 (Nanning: Guanxi shifan daxue chubanshe, 2001 edition). The archives are incomplete so the actual numbers could be larger than this.

²⁶ For luxuries in the Ming Dynasty, see Craig Clunas, Superfluous Things: Material Culture and Social Status in Early Modern China (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1991), pp. 116–40. Wu Renshu mentions that the dress of commoners changed in style from plain to ornate during the period 1522 to 1566 in his book Pinwei shehua (Tasting the Luxury 品味奢华), (Taiwan: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan and Lianjing chuban gongsi, 2007), p. 128. Concerning the pursuit of eccentric things, see Bai Qianshen, Fushan de shijie (Fu Shan’s World: The Transformation of Chinese Calligraphy in the Seventeenth Century 傅山的世界), (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2006), p. 14, and Chen Fang, ‘A Preliminary Discussion of the Aesthetic Interest in “Weirdness”’ in the Late Ming Dynasty’, Zhuangshi, 187 (2008), 131–33.

²⁷ Wu Renshu, Sheci de nüren (Luxury Women 奢侈的女人), (Taiwan: Sanming shuju gufen youxian gongsi, 2005), pp. 24–30.

²⁸ Hou Hui, Shihuo jinpingmei (Discussions on the Price of Things) in The Plum in the Golden Vase 食货金瓶梅 (Nanning: Guangxi shifan daxue chubanshe, 2007), p. 34. Many thanks to Professor Zheng Yan who recommended this book.

²⁹ Lai Huimin, ‘Qingqianlongchao neiwufu de pihuo maimai yu jingcheng shishang’ (‘The Relationship between the Fur Trade of the Aulic Daily Affairs Department in the Qianlong Period and Fashion in Beijing’ 清乾隆朝内务府的皮货买卖与京城时尚), Zhongguo shehui lishi pinglun, 4 (2004).

³⁰ Qu Dajun, Guangdong xinyu (The Local Conditions and Customs of Guangdong in the Qing dynasty 广东新语), 15 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985, first published in 1700), 413–14.

³¹ Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Century, 1 (Oakland: University of California Press, 1992), 311.

³² Craig Clunas, Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China (London: Reaktion, 1998); Wang Zhenghua, Yishu, quanli yu xiaofei: Zhongguo yishushi yanjiu de yige mianxiang, (Art, Power and Comsumption: A Direction in Chinese Art History Research 艺术权利与消费: 中国艺术史研究的一个面向) (Beijing: Zhongguo meishu xueyuan chubanshe), pp. 199–203.

Additional information

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Fang Chen

Fang Chen received her doctorate from the Fine Art College, Tsinghua University, and is now a professor at the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology (BIFT) in China. Her area of expertise is material culture of the Ming dynasty. In 2012, as an academic visitor to the History of Art Department at the University of Oxford, she carried out research on the history of Chinese women’s dress.