Rank Badges at WCMA: An Exploration Through Digital Tools

The rank badges at WCMA first caught my attention because of how strange it seemed to look at pieces of textile inside a frame. It made sense for conservation purposes, of course, but as a piece of clothing that naturally had to bear the wear of time, so much of our experience of the piece would inevitably become lost when the badges are framed independently in glass, separated from the robe they originally would have been sewn onto, from the hands that would have touched them daily, from the political context in which they would have been seen. 

This project is thus an attempt at supplementing and visualizing elements that would inevitably be lost when we look at the standalone badges by themselves, through the glaring glass surface, out of touch. To name a few, we hope to recall the badges’ historical context, sartorial context, iconography, and tactility. Through suggesting various lenses and digital resources that could help enrich our understanding of these badges, we hope that this project would inspire visitors and educators alike to integrate these rank badges into different fields of learning, such as political history, gender studies, representations of flora and fauna, religious iconography, fashion and costume-making, etc.

In WCMA's collection, there are four objects related to rank badge. Two sets of rank badges:

And two portraits of woman dressed in court attire with rank badge:

What is a rank badge? What is its significance in the clothing and political history of imperial China?

The rank badge (buzi 補子), a pair of squares to be worn on the front and back of the outer garment, was an insignia of one’s rank in the government. It was first worn by Ming Dynasty officials beginning in the 14th century, with continued use through the end of the Qing Dynasty in the 20th century. Like other aspects of Chinese wear, the rank badges were highly regulated and organized around a rigid social structure. However, incredible variations exist throughout history under the influence of different emperors, socioeconomic conditions, availability of material, development of technique, aesthetics, local regions, etc. 

The imperial household of the Qing Dynasty was Manchurian, a nomadic population who were ethnically and culturally distinct from the Han Chinese majority. However, like the Ming emperors before them, the Qing too established an elaborate civil and military bureaucracy, and an examination system through which candidates were examined and assigned rank. The societal hierarchy necessitated external markers of rank, and various regulations governing court attire culminated in the 1759 Illustrated Regulations for Ceremonial Paraphernalia of the Qing Dynasty, a comprehensive set of costume edicts used by the court, ranging from the outer garments to accessories such the hat, belt, and rank badge etc.. However, the code of court attire kept evolving, and other factors such as the popularity of religious motifs and certain embroidery techniques reflected directly on the variations of the design of rank badges.

In the Ming Dynasty, when the outer garment was fastened on the side, front and back badges were identical. In the Qing Dynasty, the outer garment was a surcoat with a front opening, so the front badge was divided and was worn on the half to be worn on right and left side of the opening. However, beside the split down the middle, there can also be many minute differences between the two panels, as seen in the pair of badges below.

While many variations exist throughout history, by the late Qing Dynasty, civil ranks were represented by birds for their literary associations, while military ranks were represented by real or mystical beasts known for courage. Civil officials stood on the emperor’s left at court functions, so the birds faced right towards him. Military officials stood on the emperor’s right, thus the beasts faced left.

Although Ming portraits show women wearing identical rank badges to their husbands, edicts outlining rules for women were not issued until the Qing dynasty, when the wives and children of officials (sons and unmarried daughters) were permitted to wear their husband’s or father’s insignia. It has been observed that a wife’s badge would be a mirror image of her husband’s, so when she sat beside him (women sat on their husband’s right), their creatures would be facing each other. For example, a civil official’s wife’s rank bird would face left to look at the husband. Returning to the ancestral portraits in WCMA's collection, the fact that both women wear robes with rank badges featuring bird motifs suggests that both were wives or daughters of civil officials, and that these portraits were likely meant to be set alongside those of their husbands.

Military badges had to be more creative in their positioning of the central motif. Since a military official would have stood on the emperor's right side in court, the beast should face the left. However, at social functions with his wife, he would occupy the position of honor on his wife's left. To avoid projecting an aura of disharmony, a compromise solution among many others was to have the beast's body facing the right toward the wife, but the head turning to the left to look at the sun. Below I have produced a mirror image of the military badge (original on our right) to showcase what its female counterpart could look like. Placed together, their bodies face each other, producing a harmony much like that shared by the birds on civil badges.

• What was the court attire like before Ming and Qing Dynasty?
• Why did the Qing Dynasty continue the Ming Dynasty tradition of rank badges?
• How did the other insignia of rank, such as the belt, headpiece, jewelry, and robe coordinate with the rank badge?
• What is the provenance of the rank badges and ancestral portraits that ended up in WCMA? Who collected them and why? 
• Both of the portraits at WCMA featured women wearing robes with rank badges, and from a brief search it seemed like portraits featuring women with rank badges are somewhat more readily available that those featuring men. Is this true and is there a reason for this?

Recurrent animal, plant, and religious motifs carry significant symbolic meanings in East Asian cultural objects. When it comes to clothing items such as rank badges, which are worn to showcase one’s status in court and in social gatherings, these motifs are visualized to follow standardized, recognizable patterns but adjusted subtly to highlight carefully-selected characteristics of the wearer. Most museum records, however, do not have a field designated to catalog these symbolic motifs, which takes away significantly from the meaning of these badges. How can we learn to identify both the central and surrounding motifs in the WCMA rank badges, and what do they add to our interpretation of the objects? 

During the Ming Dynasty, the badges were large and often included more than one animal, their decorating schemes did not have the three elements of the universe but instead featured large flowers, usually peonies. Qing dynasty badges are a representation of the universe and include sky, sea and land. Sun disk is also a Qing Dynasty feature.

By the Qing Dynasty, the central motif can generally be grouped into four categories: birds for civil servants, real or mythical beasts for the Military, xiezhi (獬豸) for the Censorate, and dragons for the imperial family. Each category is further broken down into different species symbolizing different ranks, and by late Qing Dynasty the standardized ranks were (from highest to lowest rank within each):

• 9 Birds (civil servant): crane, golden pheasant, peacock, wild goose, silver pheasant, egret, mandarin duck, quail, and paradise flycatcher
• 9 Real or mythical beasts (military): the mythical qilin, lion, leopard, tiger, bear, panther, rhinoceros (seventh, after 1759, and eighth) and horse
• 1 Xiezhi (censorate)
• 2 Dragons (imperial family): long (龍) dragons (five-clawed), mang (蟒) dragons (usually four-clawed)

However, there are many more variations outside of these formal groupings, such as the rank badge below with a mallow flower, the insignia of civil officials in the Sacred Music Department of the Qing government.

In the modern day collector's market, military badges are generally rarer than civil badges, since many military badges were destroyed or hidden following the fall of the Qing Dynasty. Since more civil rank badges are available on the market and collected in museums, there are more open resources on the identification of civil rank badges. Some good resources are: UMichigan’s  webpage  on rank badges, the  book  Ladder to the Clouds : Intrigue and Tradition in Chinese Rank by David Hugus (“Chapter 12. Identifying Birds”), and this  video  by Hugus.

Below is my own attempt at consolidating and validating the generalizations. The parenthesized bit is characteristic that can sometimes be observed but is often also absent.

However, for me it is easiest to first identify a remarkable characteristic of the bird, such as a unique feature or color, and then check for potential candidates. I have organized the chart below to help facilitate this strategy:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Penn Museum both have an extensive, digitized collection of rank badges, which makes them great sources of comparative images. Taking advantage of the two institutions’ open data, I have extracted and prepared a dataset for each that includes the basic information of all the rank badges in the institution’s collection, their URL and image files, as well as their central motifs.

My general methodology is documented in  this Storymap .

My organized Met dataset csv can be downloaded  here , and Penn  here .

Using this reference dataset, we can easily find and compare the badges at other institutions featuring the same central motif as the ones at WCMA.

The surrounding motifs that feature plant, animal, water, sky, text etc. are equally fascinating and carry more liberty of variation. Some good resources that discuss common surrounding motifs are UIUC Spurlock Museum’s  webpage  on symbols, USC Pacific Asia Museum’s  webpage  on symbols,and the  book  Ladder to the Clouds : Intrigue and Tradition in Chinese Rank by David Hugus (“Chapter 14. Chinese Symbology”). 

• How do the side motifs correspond and correlate with the central motif? Do the side motifs correlate with other side motifs?
• What is the history of associating these creatures with their ranks? Do we find these creatures as symbols of status across objects in Ming and Qing dynasty?
• Do the colors of the thread correlate with the motifs?
• Is there a difference in craftsmanship and individual variation for the motif of different ranks?
• How do individual motifs vary from the standardized motif guidelines? Are the variations regional?
• How do the choices of surrounding motifs reflect changes in societal belief and aspiration?
• Since the process of identifying the motifs is somewhat systematic but also subjective, would it be possible to use machine learning to automate the motif recognition process?
• Should the motif field be a free text field to accommodate for the incredible variation throughout time and intentional ambiguities? Or a standardized field to facilitate data-based research?

On Costumes and Codes of Dressing in Ming & Qing China

• Collection of official statutes of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), including regulations about dressing:《(万历)大明会典》 Link 
• Collection of official statutes of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912), including regulations about dressing:《钦定大清会典》 Link 
• The Qing Ministry of Board of Rites. Illustrated Regulations for Ceremonial Paraphernalia of the Qing dynasty《皇朝禮器圖式》, 1796.  Link 
• Vollmer, John E. “Clothed to Rule the Universe.” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 26, no. 2 (2000): 13–105.  https://doi.org/10.2307/4104402 .

On Rank Badges

• Jackson, Beverly, and David Hugus. Ladder to the Clouds : Intrigue and Tradition in Chinese Rank. Berkeley, Calif: Ten Speed Press, 1999.  Link 
• Citations under this  object entry  at Cleveland Museum of Art.
• USC Pacific Asia Museum’s  resources  accompanying the exhibition Rank and Style: Power Dressing in Imperial China.
• Christie's. "Unmistaken identity: a guide to the rank badges of ancient China."  Link 

On Chinese Textile

• Gao, Hanyu. Chinese Textile Designs. Translated by Rosemary Scott and Susan Whitfield. London : Viking, 1992.  Link 
• Brown, Claudia, and Robert D. Mowry. Weaving China’s Past : the Amy S. Clague Collection of Chinese Textiles. Phoenix Art Museum, 2000.  Link