Title: Beauty and Power: Clothing in Chinese Paintings and Historical Photographs
Authors: Helena Heroldová, Lucie B. Olivová, Petra Polláková, Jan Šejbl
Publisher: Národní Muzeum, 2022
Visual sources are a fundamental source for history studies. They are particularly an invaluable source of information for the history of clothing. This study focuses on the visual depiction of clothing in traditional Chinese paintings and historical photographs. It presents the traditional painting scrolls from the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) and the photographs from the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century kept in the collection of the Náprstek museum in Prague. The analysis of the visual sources is focused mainly on ritual ancestral portraits and the genre paintings of “beautiful women”. Historical photographs depict clothing in staged studio portraits. The study poses the question of whether these visual sources can be reliable for analysing historical clothing.
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