Wedding Bonnet

Wedding Headdress

19th century
Maker
Artist not known, China
Country
China
headdress, wedding
Silk, kingfisher feathers, copper alloy, turquoise, glass and ceramic
Neusteter Textile Collection: Gift of Mrs. J. Churchill Owen
1973.23
About the Artist

We don’t know much about who made this wedding hat, but five kinds of materials are used—bird feathers, metal, glass, ceramics and silk. This suggests that a number of artisans who specialized in different techniques collaborated on its construction. Of all the techniques, the use of kingfisher feathers (most of the turquoise and deep blue parts of the hat) is the most exacting. An observer in 1908 described the process:

"The wonder worker . . . takes a single hair from out of the bird’s wing, draws it through a bit of glue and lays it on the silver foundation. Then another hair, which he lays beside the first. Then another and another and another . . . until he has laid the filaments . . . so closely together that they look like pieces of enamel.”

The artisans who made the glass parts were also masters of their craft, to the point where they could make glass look like many other, more precious materials. There are green glass wings on a butterfly that look like jade, pink glass used for bodies of small butterflies that look like coral and much use of white glass beads made to look like pearls.

An elaborate hat like this one was made for a bride, perhaps a Manchu princess (the Manchu were the rulers during the Qing dynasty, 1644–1911), to wear at her wedding. The fringe of beads partially covered her face, like a veil in Western bridal fashions.

What Inspired It

In Chinese society during the Qing (CHING) dynasty major life events like a marriage followed exacting rituals that included what the bride wore. Virtually every bit of ornamentation on the bonnet has a symbolic, auspicious meaning. You can see some of these details close up in the "Details" section. Filling a wedding hat with symbols for good wishes made it likely the bride and groom would have happy lives.

A headdress like this was usually a wedding gift to the bride from the groom’s family and may have been a family heirloom. Weddings were alliances between families, rather than love matches, and most brides and grooms never met before the ceremony. Chinese brides were carried to their future husband’s house in a sedan chair. According to custom, on this day the bride’s feet never touched bare earth. Wealthy brides would step onto a red silk carpet. Poorer brides might step onto plainer cloth, or even rags if necessary. All families, regardless of wealth, honored the couple as “emperor and empress” for their wedding day.

Details

Double Happiness

On the top of the hat is a band of flowers and under the flowers there are curved streamers in the shape of wish-granting clouds and the characters for “double happiness,” the two characters often used for weddings

Veil of Symbols

The veil of this wedding bonnet consists of strands of tiny glass beads made to look like seed pearls strung with auspicious symbols in the center. These symbols are glass or ceramics made to look like various semi-precious stones. The auspicious symbols include the bat (blessings) and the crab (harmony). The bat and the crab acquired these symbolic meanings because their names (fu and xie) are pronounced the same as the Chinese words for “blessings” and “harmony.”

Swastika Symbol

Today we have many negative associations with the swastika, but this symbol is one of the oldest in the world, and for the Chinese it was a lucky emblem. The Chinese word for this symbol, wan, means “ten thousand.” It often multiplies nearby symbols, as in “ten thousand blessings.”

Kingfisher Feathers

This bonnet uses two different colors of kingfisher feathers, a deep bright blue and a brilliant turquoise blue, cut to fill shapes outlined in wire and painstakingly glued in place.

Butterfly Antenna

Metal artisans would coil wire into a sort of spring to create movement—the white glass beads on the ends would bounce as the wearer walked or turned her head.

China: Wedding Traditions

China: Wedding Traditions

More Resources

Chinese Traditional Wedding

Find out about various practices and customs involved in a traditional Chinese wedding. Includes detailed narration that lasts about 5 minutes.

Websites

Chinese Wedding Traditions

A summary of traditional Chinese wedding customs prepared by the Chinese Historical and Cultural Project.

Books

Jackson, Beverley. Kingfisher Blue: Treasures of an Ancient Chinese Art. Berkley, CA: Ten Speed Press, 2001.

A lively, informative look at the use of the bright blue feathers that were extremely popular in Chinese fashion and art, with many photographs.

Garrett, Valery M. A Collector's Guide to Chinese Dress Accessories. Singapore: Times Ed., 2001.

See chapter three on headwear, which covers various kinds of headwear including wedding hats.

Garrett, Valery. Chinese Dress from Qing to the Present. North Clarendon, Vermont: Tuttle Publishing, 2007.

See chapter four on the attire of Chinese women, which includes a section on men and women’s wedding clothing.

Children’s Books

Friedman, Mel. Ancient China. New York: Children’s Press, 2010.

Fun facts about China and its culture including inventions, military history, traditions and dress. Best for grades 2-6.

Look, Lenore, and Yumi Heo. Uncle Peter’s Amazing Chinese Wedding. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2006.

This book is told from the point of view of a Chinese American girl who participatesin her uncle’s traditional Chinese wedding. For ages 4 to 8.

Funding for object education resources provided by a grant from the Morgridge Family Foundation. Additional funding provided by the William Randolph Hearst Endowment for Education Programs, and Xcel Energy Foundation. We thank our colleagues at the University of Denver Morgridge College of Education.

The images on this page are intended for classroom use only and may not be reproduced for other reasons without the permission of the Denver Art Museum. This object may not currently be on display at the museum.