The Costume of China / Picturesque Representations of the Dress and Manners of the Chinese

Chapter 45: Plate XLIV. A NURSERY MAID AND TWO CHILDREN.

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About This Book

An illustrated volume presents fifty colored engravings with descriptive text that surveys dress, occupations, and social customs across urban and rural settings. Plates depict court and military attire with insignia indicating rank, everyday laborers, domestic servants, entertainers, religious practitioners and rituals, market and transport scenes, and tools and weapons, often accompanied by explanations of materials, costume elements, and local practices such as fishing methods and funerary observances. The commentary mixes observational notes on appearance and behavior with practical details about trades, ceremonies, and the visual markers of status.

Plate XLIV.

A NURSERY MAID AND TWO CHILDREN.

The annexed are portraits of a female servant, and of a male and female child, which will give a tolerably correct idea of the dresses worn by them respectively. That of the maid servant differs in nothing from her mistress, but in the materials; the latter generally wearing silk, and the one in question cotton. A Chinese woman of the meanest condition would feel herself degraded if not allowed to mutilate her feet.

China—Plate 45