National Museums Scotland’s collection of Chinese dress and textiles illuminates transformations of social life and textile crafts in nineteenth-century China. Insights from this collection communicate dress histories of wider social groups, diversifying narratives of Chinese history and materialities.

Last updated: 03 July 2025

About the project 

This project is a collaboration between National Museums Scotland and Dr Rachel Silberstein, a specialist in Chinese dress and textiles.  The three-month British Academy Visiting Fellowship will survey and study a selection of nineteenth-century Chinese textiles and clothing in the museum’s permanent and loan collections.

These include examples of Qing dynasty (1644-1911) imperial and vernacular dress that were collected by Scottish connoisseurs. They also include objects that were acquired and displayed as representations of Chinese textile design and technology in order to improve Scotland’s industry and trade.  

Applying her established method of garment scholarship, Dr Silberstein will combine an in-depth analysis of selected objects with archival and literature research to reinterpret these artefacts as documents of cultural and social transformations in nineteenth-century China and Great Britain. The results of the project will be disseminated through a hands-on museum session (object workshop) for specialist and general audiences, upgraded museum object records, talks, and publications. 

A historian examines an elaborate Chinese dress hood. The fabric is red and has embroidered designs of dragons.
Dr Silberstein studying a hood made from an imported scarlet broadcloth and embroidered with two dragons coiling around a mirrored sun, silk and wool, China 1850-1900. Museum reference A.1979.272
Project title

Collecting and Exhibiting Chinese 'National Dress' and Industrial Design: Charting Qing Dynasty Dress and Textile History in the Collections of National Museums Scotland

Project active

26 May 2025 – 29 August 2025

Research theme

Colonial histories and legacies, research topics: Material histories; Object meanings 

Strategic priorities

Developing, preserving and increasing access to the National Collections. Strengthening and sharing collections knowledge and research 

Contributors

Rachel Silberstein, project investigator (Independent scholar, affiliated with University of Washington)

Friederike Voigt, project host (National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh) 

An embroidered grey cloth with two small birds eating an insect.
Detail of an embroidered altar cloth showing two birds eating an insect. Produced for a Jesuit community, silk and metal-wrapped threads, southern China, 1750-1800. Museum reference A.1893.542

Project contact

  • Friederike Voigt

    Role
    Principal Curator, West, South and Southeast Asian collections

Funded by

This project is funded by the British Academy’s Visiting Fellowships Programme, supported under the UK Government’s International Science Partnerships Fund. Award reference VF3\102676