This hand-coloured Chinese woodblock print from Yangliuqing, a famous craft centre outside of Tianjin city in northern China, came up recently at auction. The title, wenjing wuwei (文經武緯) literally means “civil warp, military woof” – the idea that civil and military departments should work closely together to govern the country. In reality, civil officials, who were only appointed after years …
Buttons and Badges
Mesny and other Qing dynasty officials showed off their rank with – amongst other things like jade belt buckles, Buddha-bead necklaces and peacock feathers – coloured hat finials or “buttons” (帽顶), and embroidered rank badges (補子). Here’s a photo of him from around 1875, dressed as a third-rank official. Hat finials were a coloured ball the size of a large …