Antiques-History-Objects and This Week's Video

August 22, 2025 Volume 597

Bits and Pieces.

Chinese silk fine art in early Qing dynasty observations from historical literature

Author Li Wang

Abstract

This article analyses in some detail the silk fabrics that appear in a historical literary work of the early Qing dynasty, Dream of the Red Chamber, a famous autobiographical work in which the author describes many of the details of the fabrics based on his own experiences and his family's inextricable links with the imperial silk factories of Jiangnan during the Kangxi period. The text also cross-referenced historical archives to show the exquisite silk fashion at the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the pursuit and enjoyment of luxurious silk and imported fabrics by the aristocracy class in the early Qing dynasty, and how this mode affected the lives of ordinary people.

At the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a period of early globalisation, the West reached the East by sea, spreading religions, exchanging material goods, cultures, knowledge and technologies, the whole world was connected as never before. This was the beginning of the Manchu Qing dynasty, the “High Qing”¹, a period of stability and centralisation, when agriculture, handicrafts and commerce developed; in the meantime, the society as a whole was on the rise politically, economically and culturally. With the expansion of domestic economy and the prosperity of overseas trade, Chinese silk market also developed, with almost all silk production of the royal silk factories concentrated in Jiangnan. It has been recorded in ancient documents such as Memorial of Suzhou Imperial Silk Factory² the variety of production, the complexity of the textile names, the quality of the materials used, the high cost, and the elaborate embroidery. At the same time, in the private silk market, many silk towns emerged, all with their own characteristics in the production of silk fabrics, which was a reflection of the fashion and consumption level of silk fabrics in the early Qing society.

Dream of the Red Chamber, also known as Book of the Stone, is written by Cao Xueqin from the mid-eighteenth century and is listed as one of the Four Great Classical Chinese Masterpieces. This book presents the rise and fall of an aristocratic family in the form of a love story. These are closely linked to the author's own experiences, although for political reasons the author has omitted the dynastic context from his narrative. Most of the geographical names in the book, with the exception of the fictional names in the storyline, refer to actual states, prefectures and counties where the main characters live, such as Jinling, Gusu, Weiyang, Jindu, Chang'an, Jiangning and Changzhou, most of which were political or economic centres of the Qing dynasty and where Cao Xueqin's life took him. Three generations of Cao family worked as Zhizao [织造zhī zào], supervisor in the imperial silk factories of Jinling, Suzhou and Hangzhou. In his early years, Xueqin lived in Jiangnan with his family. Jiangnan had been a prosperous place since ancient times and was the economic centre of the Qing dynasty, being extremely well connected by canal and sea, with salt from Yangzhou, silk from Suzhou and Hangzhou, and all domestic local products being distributed there.

In the early Qing dynasty, Cao Yin, who is the great-grandfather of Cao Xueqin, and his in-laws, Li and Sun, took over the top management of the three imperial silk factories in Jiangnan, in addition to supervising the salt, copper, customs and other national economic affairs, so it could be said that they were actually in charge of the financial lifeline of Jiangnan. The official position of Zhizao, supervisors of imperial silk factory, was not very high, however they were close to the emperor and could communicate directly with the emperor across the hierarchy in secret memorials to the throne, the emperor also repeatedly gave instructions in red inked reviews, such as “not to reveal your actions” or “ask for secret instructions on difficult matters”.³ Cao Xueqin's family effectively became the key financial ministers of the Qing imperial court during the Kangxi period, until the family was raided in the early Yongzheng period. The ups and downs of this period provided materials for the writing of Dream of the Red Chamber, and the writer was cultivated from childhood in a life of aristocratic families in Qing Dynasty Jiangnan, the aesthetics, philosophy, lifestyle and social relations observed therein have shaped the details of Dream of the Red Chamber, which have prompted generations of Redology⁴ scholars to explore it.

Dream of the Red Chamber contains a wealth of colourful and beautiful descriptions of various types of silk textiles. Cao Xueqin, who came from a family managing Jiangning imperial silk factories, unsurprisingly had access to the most sophisticated techniques and the most exquisite silk fabrics in the early Qing Dynasty, and was very familiar with the varieties, properties, uses and characteristics of countless types of silk textiles; in particular, he had the most extensive and profound knowledge of luxury and imported silk fabrics, being the representative of the highest level of knowledge of fine textiles in the early Qing Dynasty. Although it has been documented information on silk in historical documents and ancient texts, such as lists of the imperial used and official used draperies in Memorial of Suzhou Imperial Silk Factory⁵, records of rewarding silk for officials or foreign countries in archival documents, and lists of cargoes from Western ships, which more or less illustrate the fine silk fashion of the time. However, in Dream of the Red Chamber, an autobiographical work of history and literature, many details about the silk fabrics are depicted based on the author's personal experience: the colours, the type of dress made or decoration used, and the owner or usage, all of which give an immersive sense of the social style and thus a deeper understanding of the silk fabrics of the period.

The description of luxury silk fabrics and imported fabrics in Dream of the Red Chamber is almost a “study in proximity”, as the Redology scholar Fang Hao has said: The author of the barnyard story can fudge the time, the place, the characters and the background of all the stories, or turn them upside down, making them inscrutable; but in the subtleties of the plot, it is not easy to take care of everything, and unknowingly reveal the truth (real time, real place, real characters).⁶

Categories of fabrics in literature

There are countless types of fabrics in Dream of the Red Chamber, often on chief characters and on important occasions, the frequency and variety of their appearance is unparalleled in Ming and Qing novels of the same era; they also contain descriptions of many imported Western fabrics, the descriptions of these fabrics and costumes also contribute to the plot and characterisation of the novel. The author's impressions of what he saw in person, as he tasted and described from his memories in his later years, are a vivid demonstration of the fine silk fashion of the aristocratic society of the Qing dynasty. The following are lists of the main silk fabrics that appear in Dream of the Red Chamber, analysed in terms of their use, the identity of their owners and their colours.

“Yarn, a thin and light silk fabric.”⁷ “The square hollowed fabric is called yarn, and fabric with pepper-shaped hole is called luo [罗luó].” ⁸ “Luo, is a kind of silk woven with thin holes.”⁹ “Xiao [绡xiāo], is also raw silk.” It is a light and transparent silk fabric woven from raw silk in a plain or variegated plain pattern.¹⁰The following is a list of some of the yarn fabrics used in the Dream of the Red Chamber. It can be seen that the light fabrics of yarn or luo, could be spun alone or mixed with cotton to make everyday clothing such as shirts, coats and socks in the Qing Dynasty. The colours were either bright or plain and were suitable for both men and women. The silver-red haze yarn used as a window-covering yarn mentioned in chapter forty is a fine piece of yarn, and is introduced in the text through the mouth of Jiamu¹¹, whose proper name is “soft smoke”, often used as a window-covering yarn as it looks hazy like smoke from a distance and is often mistaken for cicada wing yarn. This fabric comes in four colours: after rain sky blue, light yellowish green of autumn fragrance¹², pine green and silver red; the silver-red one is also known as haze yarn. In chapter ninety-second, the “merman silk tent” is also written as a rare fabric, extremely light and thin, used as a mosquito net. The merman raw silk is said to be used by the legendary mermen, which is a description of its fine whiteness.

“Silk, the common name of silk woven products, but today this name is mostly limited to silk woven with domestic silkworm cocoon, Ning silk [宁绸níng chou], or cocoon silk [茧绸jiǎn chóu] woven from wild silkworm cocoons. Mian silk [绵绸mián chóu] is produced in Jia and Hu areas of Zhejiang; Ning silk was originally produced in Nanjing, but is now available in Hangzhou and Zhenjiang, silk products from Hangzhou are exquisite, soft, and lustrous.” “Crepe, the common name for crepe-shrunk silk fabrics, such as Huzhou's lake crepe, Hangzhou's line crepe, Suzhou's Su line crepe, Zhenjiang's Jiang river line crepe, and various crepe yarn, or crepe cloth made in different places.”¹³ The silk or crepe comes in a variety of colours, including emerald with sprinkles, red, cyan, onion green, oil green, and with “long life and prosperity” motifs; the production techniques are also very elaborate and chic, such as combining the garments with silver mouse fur and sheepskin. “Foreign crepe” [洋绉yáng zhòu] was mentioned several times, some Qing Dynasty scholars believed that foreign crepe was a variety of crepe only in the Qing Dynasty, “raw silk and scoured silk are weaved into crepe, in ancient times there was no today's genus of crepes such as line crepe, lake crepe, foreign crepe, respectively.”¹⁴ Whereas, Sericulture Collection argues that “Foreign crepe is lake crepe.”¹⁵ Huzhou Gazetteer in Tongzhi Period also recorded that the lake crepe “is commonly known as foreign crepe.”¹⁶ It can be seen that this fabric, although with “foreign” in its name, is actually the traditional lake crepe. It is also known as “foreign”, probably because it was often traded abroad during the Kangxi years when the sea-ban was firstly opened; it also makes sense that a rare object would be referred to as a western product, so it would have been passed off as a foreign crepe. In the seventy-eighth chapter, reference is made to “ice merman gauze”, which is also a type of crepe fabric. “Gauze, spun silk and woven, is also light for yarn and crepe for gauze.”¹⁷ “Ice”, probably refers to the colour of the fabric is nearly transparent white, “Merman”, as in “merman silk tent”, is also a description of the rarity of the fabric and the fineness of the craft.

“Damask, the surface resembles satin but the quality is light and thin.”¹⁸ There is a large number and variety of damask fabrics in the book, with dress varieties such as cotton skirts, fine folded skirts, short coats, thin cotton coats, underwear, etc.; the colours are even more colourful, such as onion yellow, red, white, white painted with light ink, popping ink pattern [弹墨 dàn mò]¹⁹, etc.

“Brocade, a five-coloured silk fabric, is most famous for its production in Chengdu, Sichuan and Jianyang, Fujian. In addition, Wenzhou's ou brocade [瓯锦 ōu jǐn], Jingzhou's square brocade, are also quite famous in the world.” During the Qing dynasty, clothing made of silk and woollen fabrics were precious, and brocade was often used as home accessories such as brocade boxes and backrests. For example, the “chain motif brocade backrest” is made of a fabric with golden silk thread woven into a chain-shaped design; and the “tiger skin pattern brocade box”. It was often used as an embellishment for garments, such as the “sapphire blue brocade and flowers decorated cotton dress” and the “brocaded popping ink pattern socks”.

“The best satin is produced in Nanjing, Suzhou and Hangzhou. Zhang satin was originally produced in Zhangzhou, Fujian, and was copied in Nanjing and Suzhou. Ba satin [巴缎bā duàn] and Ronghua satin [浣花缎huàn huā duàn] are produced in Sichuan. Yuanqing satin [元青缎yuán qīng duàn] is produced in Nanjing. In addition, such as flower satin [花缎huā duàn], twill satin [斜纹缎 xié wén duàn], flash satin [闪缎shǎn duàn], etc., are varieties of satin. Yuanqing satin has no grain.”²⁰ Apart from damask, satin is also the most widely used silk fabric in the book. It was used for coats, vests, and in the most expensive fox-axillary fur²¹ combined into ruffles and arrow sleeve [箭袖jiàn xiù]²² robes. The Zhuang satin [妆缎zhuāng duàn], python satin [蟒缎mǎng duàn] and Japanese satin [倭缎 wō duàn]²³ were all silk fabrics used exclusively by the royal family. The Zhuang satin [妆缎 zhuāng duàn], also called Zhuanghua satin [妆花zhuāng huā], is a representative of the highest silk weaving techniques of the Qing Dynasty. Zhuanghua satin is a colourful weft brocade fabric. Its craft is characterised by partial gouging and coiling, weaving various coloured floral and weft threads into the satin according to a pattern. There are many woven “python” decorations in Zhuanghua satin, which is also known as python satin, or “python”. In Dream of the Red Chamber, it mentions various python dresses of Baoyu, such as the red gold python fox-axillary fur arrow sleeve robe, white python arrow sleeve robe, Qiu Xiang standing python white fox-axillary fur arrow sleeve robe, etc.

Silk engraving [刻丝kè sī], a traditional silk weaving art, is woven in a special way, all with small shuttles to dig the flowers, through the warp and weft, so that the colours are comparable to paintings. There are more silk engraving fabrics in Dream of the Red Chamber, mostly worn by the main noble characters, in more flamboyant colours, and made into thicker garments such as coats and cloaks together with fur materials. It is clear that silk engraving was in full swing at the time.

Feather yarn and feather satin are fibres of tweed mixed with camel hair or goat hair fibres, which has a long history in Europe. “It was brought to China by the Europeans in the late Ming Dynasty, and was considered to be a precious commodity. At the beginning of the Kangxi period, the tribute was only one or two pieces. Nowadays, there are many of them in Fujian and Guangdong, and they are woven with bird snipe wool.” It can be seen that these crane cloaks, gold peacock feather robe [雀金裘què jīn qiú], etc., recorded in Dream of the Red Chamber, are all feather yarn and feather satin, the most luxurious and rare fabrics.

According to Jiamu's words in the text, gold peacock feather robe “is called gold peacock, which is woven from peacock feathers in Russia”, so it is made from a blend of peacock feathers; it could be inferred that in such a wealthy and extravagant noble family, gold peacock robe was still considered a precious and rare item. It is also recorded in an antiquarian text that “the peacock robe was made from a mixture of peacock feathers”. There are records in ancient texts of early Qing dynasty that “in the old days, flower satin was woven with silk only, and gorgeous satin was also embroidered with brocade ...... Now there is peacock feather woven into satin, called feather brocade, the flowers are more beautiful, each pi²⁴ is only twelve feet, worth more than fifty taels of silver.”²⁵

In addition to feather satin and feather yarn, other imported fabrics in the novel include gorilla scarlet woollen²⁶, sash from the queen of Qianxiang Country, western cloth hand towels, drogue [哆啰呢duo luo ní], eider fur, velvet, tweed, serge, and merman silk tents, which were used for a variety of purposes including dress, house furnishings, and tableware. In 1943, Fang Hao found proof from the Biography of the Jesuits who entered China before 1773, the Collection of Correspondence of the Jesuits, and the Orthodox Church's Compliments, all of which are rare primary sources in western languages. It is clear that Cao Xueqin's ancestor, Cao Xi, who was a Zhizao official in Jiangning imperial silk factory, must have met with Western missionaries, proving that many of the foreign items in the novel were imported in this way.²⁷ Huang Long points out that the Cao family of Jiangning imperial silk factory, many times involved in foreign affairs tasks required by the court to receive the missionaries, as imperial merchants.²⁸

Literature and social style are interconnected. Literature is rich in the social content of the times, with people's aesthetic values varying according to social conditions. In terms of attention to and research on Ming and Qing commodities, including luxury dress fabrics and imported materials, Dream of the Red Chamber has been used as a unique literary and historical source to support various discourses on the luxurious silk dress of the early Qing aristocracy. At the same time, it reveals the impact of the limited importation of foreign fabrics on the material and spiritual lives of the people in the Qing dynasty against the background of the sea ban policy.

In the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, Chen Tan pointed out in his “Essay on Customs” that: the carving and embroidery of dwelling places, the embroidery of clothing, and the splendour of utensils were all so-called extravagant in ancient times, but nowadays they are regarded as mediocre and unexceptional, while foreign things were in fashion, such as using glass for houses and boats, droguet, serge and feathers for draperies and clothes, all of which were made in foreign countries...... ²⁹ The popularity of imported luxury goods could be seen.

China's textile technology was advanced worldwide in the early Qing Dynasty. After the introduction of foreign textiles, China adapted production techniques to its original textile skills and soon produced imitation products, which at one time even influenced the rise and fall of the market in the country of origin. For example, in the second half of the seventeenth century, a new tweed fabric, the feather yarn, appeared in the Netherlands. After being imported into China, imitation products soon appeared in Fujian, Guangdong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas, all mastered this textile technology and produced fabrics similar to feather yarn and feather satin. The success of the imitation of droguet at the imperial silk factory in Suzhou during the Qianlong period is an indication of the pursuit of imported fabrics by the upper classes, as well as the superiority of textile skills in the Qing dynasty.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the exquisite silk fabrics including the exotic and fine imported textiles that appear in the novels of the Ming and Qing dynasties do not go beyond the types and names that appear in Dream of the Red Chamber and are often presented in the context of the characters’ relationships, symbolising the power, wealth and luxury of the upper classes. The book Dream of the Red Chamber clearly shows that luxury silk fabrics and imported fabrics were used in all aspects of noble family life in the early Qing dynasty. The pursuit and enjoyment of luxury silk fabrics and the rare foreign silk fabrics was common among the upper classes, quietly changed the consumption habits of the upper classes in the early Qing dynasty, which in turn affected the common people.

If You'd Like What We Do

Please consider joining the BIDAMOUNT Community by becoming a PATREON or Global Member Subscriber and help support this site and our YouTube Channel.

Thank you very much. Peter

$5 Per Month

$ 4 Per Month

CLICK TO JOIN

For the extra dollar a Month I think the Patreon Membership gives more bang for the buck.. Both support the YouTube Channel and maintain this site. ..

Weekly handpicked auction lost in the USA and Abroad as well as access to the AUCTIONEER Report Card, over 450 Auction Houses Graded A to F with comments. $4 a month.

This Week's Videos

A few items we think are nice.