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Jacket
Unknown - Enlarge image
Jacket
- Place of origin:
Guizhou, China (made)
- Date:
ca. 1922 (made)
- Artist/Maker:
Unknown (production)
- Materials and Techniques:
Cotton, wool and silk patchwork, with silk embroidery, applied strips of silk, wool and cotton, resist dyeing and block printing
- Credit Line:
Given by Mr B. G. Tours CMG
- Museum number:
T.78-1922
- Gallery location:
In Storage
This jacket would have been made and worn in the south-west of China by the Miao people. The entire jacket is fashioned from pieces of silk, cotton and wool, some of which are densely embroidered. Separate pieces of material, later made up into jackets, were easier for women to pick up and work on as they moved about their homes doing domestic chores. Triangles of different coloured plain and yellow-spotted resist-dyed cotton as well as red striped wool were used in this garment. Arranged in a pattern of concentric diamonds, the patchwork is outlined with a broad band of red wool to which a zigzag stitching line in blue has been added. Folded applique strips, in bands of white, red and blue, mark the edge of the triangular patchwork section towards the shoulder. The many different techniques employed on this jacket attest to the versatility of its maker; all Miao clothese are showcases for several technical skills. The donor of this jacket was Britain's consul general for this area of China at the beginning of the twentieth century and he acquired the jacket himself from a woman who had reportedly taken two years to make it.
