Photography Hairdresser Braiding Hair
Photography Hairdresser Braiding Hair
CC BY-SA 4.0
A black-and-white photograph showing a street barber braiding a Manchu braid. The bianzi 辮子 braid hairstyle is a traditional Manchu male hairstyle that became mandatory for all male subjects during the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912). Just as the wearing of this hairstyle indicated an allegiance to the rule of the Manchu royal family, at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the cutting of the male pigtail became part of a general rebellion against “foreign” rulers.
The photograph is the 132nd of 449 photographs of Beijing and its surroundings in the album of Ivan Skušek Jr., purchased during his stay in Beijing (1914–1920). In the handwritten inventory of the album, the photograph is referred to as Friseur beim Zopfflechten. (DZ, MV)
Place of manufacture: Beijing
Manufacturing technique: black-and-white photograph
Dimensions: length: 8.1 cm, width: 8.6 cm
No. of parts: 1
Current owner: Slovene Ethnographic Museum
Date of the last acquisition: 1963
Previous owners and periods of ownership: Ivan Skušek, Jr. and Tsuneko Kondō Kawase - Marija Skušek, National Museum of Slovenia, Slovene Ethnographic Museum
Object condition, handling and damage: well preserved, trimmed left- and right-hand edges
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