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

Chapter 46: Plate XLV. A STAGE PLAYER.

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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 XLV.

A STAGE PLAYER.

By the military emblem on the breast-plate, the annexed figure of a stage player must be intended to represent a great general or some military hero famous in the annals of China. Noisy music and extravagant gestures are the characteristic features of the Chinese stage, of which it would lead us into too long a detail to convey any intelligible account; and we prefer, therefore, to refer to the curious and interesting descriptions which have been furnished on this subject by Lord Macartney, Sir George Staunton and Mr. Barrow. We have only to add, that the figure was sketched from the life.

China—Plate 46