One of the pleasures of China Week 2010 has been the richly opulent displays to be found in the Library Foyer Exhibition and in the slide show and lecture presented by Dr Melanie Hillebrand, Director of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Museum in Port Elizabeth.
Dr Hillebrand has worked hard to ensure that the Museum reflects both the current and historic population of the Eastern Cape, and thus it includes both Indian and Chinese art. A ceramacist by profession, Chinese ceramics formed the core of her training. The West, she says, has been haunted by tantalising glimpses of China, yet we have often only a superficial understanding of this extremely complex culture.
Beginning by explaining how the Museum came to possess its late-era Qing Dynasty collection, Dr Hillebrand told the audience how Mrs Lorimer, the first curator of the Museum in 1956, began to put together an Oriental collection. These were extremely fashionable at the time. When Dr Hillebrand herself started at the Museum some decades later, she found the collection packed away in a trunk. With expert advice, she picked out two ancestor portraits, obtained from a deceased estate here in Grahamstown, and acted on the suggestion that the collection be rejuvenated based on these. This involved not only restoring the relevant items in the original collection, but also sourcing similar textiles and garments to those in the portraits.
The first slide presented to us was of an emperor, wearing a pale yellow tunic or dragon coat. An emperor, Dr Hillebrand explained, was the only person permitted to wear yellow. The collection contains garments from the 18th and 19th centuries, a period when the reigning Qing dynasty had become very corrupt. The Qing were Manchurians, and set up a code which distinguished between Manchurians and Han Chinese (who made up the great majority of the population). An example of this was the shaved forehead and pigtail imposed on the Han Chinese.
Further slides displayed items of clothing, held in the collection, which would have immediately revealed to the onlooker what class or station you held in life. By the 18th and 19th centuries clothing had incorporated Manchurian imagery and design; for example the Manchurians introduced a slit in the traditional dragon robe or under-tunic. A rank badge, displaying a delicately embroidered bird, appeared to be cut in half; Dr Hillebrand explained that this was in fact the case as this badge appeared on the front half of the bifurcated surcoat. The badge on the back would have been identical, but intact.
The other ancestor portrait was of a Han Chinese lady, in formal attire. The tiger on her rank badge indicates that she was married to a military man. The portrait's subject is shown wearing a surcoat, with formal patterning and elaborate accessories. Dr Hillebrand displayed a slide showing a slightly crumpled headdress, similar to the one in the portrait, which, she says, the Museum are “very glad to have!”
Further slides showed photos of ordinary wear, consisting of leggings and robes for all ranks and classes. While the poor wore cotton, the wealthier had robes of silk. Some photos of shoes followed – the tiny shoes for the deformed feet of those who had been bound since childhood, and the oddly shaped 'rocking stilt' shoe, worn by Manchurian women. Their cultural rules forbade them to bind their feet but many wished to emulate the tottering walk of the Han Chinese which was considered so desirable.
More recent photos showed how the clothing rules were changed by the leader of the revolution, Sun Yatsen. Wishing to look both Chinese and modern, he had tailors invent a suit for him, which evolved into the well-known “Mao suit”.
The textiles in the collection represent, says Dr Hillebrand, “windows into a past world, and into a present world.” The collection is fragile (silk, being organic, does decay over time) and is thus only shown every five or so years, for three months at a stretch. Those present at her lecture were thus afforded a rare glimpse of a truly exotic and cherished collection.
Pic: Dr Melanie Hillebrand.