Traditional Wedding Gallery
In ancient China, marriage was considered one of the most important events in life since it binds two families together and the couple become responsible for ancestral worship ceremonies and nurturing descendants. So the traditional wedding ceremony was one of grandest ceremonies in Chinese folk custom.
Dowry
Wedding Bedroom
Wedding Sedan Chair
Dating back to the Zhou Dynasty, the traditional wedding ceremony amounted to a complicated and meticulous process including gift exchanging, birthday matching, divination, wedding date decision making, and formal ceremony.
Traditional Wedding Gallery
The gift exchanging between the bride’s and groom’s families played an important part in wedding culture. Upon the agreement of the marriage, the groom’s family would send wedding gifts to the future wife’s family, representing their sincerity. On the day of the formal wedding ceremony, the large wedding group from the groom’s side would escort the bride together with the dowry to the groom’s home. There is a Chinese phrase “十里红妆”, literally five-kilometer dowry, showing the wealth of the bride’s family.
Wedding group in the Qing Dynasty
Betrothal gifts in the Qing Dynasty
The dowry from well off families consisted of a variety of items used in daily life, for instance, furniture, garments, bedding, jewelry, embroidery material, wedding sedan chair, cases and home decorations. These items would be placed in the wedding bedroom, which was decorated in red with the Chinese character 囍 (double happiness) as a backdrop for the jubilant atmosphere.
Wedding Bedroom
The wedding sedan chair for the bride usually got the most attention during the wedding ceremony and its magnificence indicated the wealth and social status of the bride’s family. Riding in the sedan chair from her own home to the future husand’s home, the bride opened a new page in her life.
Wedding Sedan Chair
Architectural Design with Double Happiness
Teapot Bucket
Candle Holder
In the Traditional Wedding Gallery on the second floor of the Six Arts Museum are many items which represent the profound culture of traditional weddings, including the wedding bedroom, the wedding sedan chairs and the dowry.
Embroidered Wedding Sedan Chair, Houma, Shanxi Province
This wedding sedan chair, without any restoration, is originally from Houma, Shanxi Province, classified as soft cover wedding sedan chair, once popular in North China. The red top of the sedan chair is hung with red and yellow tassels while the compartment is covered with red valance embroidered with auspicious patterns, extraordinarily magnificent.
Hexagonal Basket Sets Decorated with Golden Paint
Bamboo woven items play an indispensable role in daily life, especially the bamboo basket set from the region around Hangzhou, Jiaxing and Huzhou usually serving as birthday gifts or dowry.
This pair of Hexagonal basket sets decorated with golden paint were donated by Mr. Wang Juexin from Shengze Wujiang, Jiangsu Province, on May 29th, 2021. They once were the dowry of Ms. Xu Hui, the mother of Mr. Wang Juexin. With almost 100 years of history, they still remain in a good shape and look stunning in elegance and oppearance.
This pair of Hexagonal basket were donated by Mr. Wang Juexin