China: a Manchu bride. Photograph by John Thomson, 1871.

A head and shoulders portrait of a young woman, posed to face the front against a dark background, looking left. Dressed in a richly embroidered costume and floral headgear with tassels, her face is powdered white. The photographer John Thomson took many photographs of Manchu brides and their magnificent wedding costumes. In this example he adopted a style that is both discreet and intimate, showing his sensitivity towards the sitter. The glimpse of sadness in her eyes reflects a gloomy view of a Manchu bride's prospects in marriage: for Thomson it was reckoned a life of slavery, in which the wife 'is even liable to be beaten by her mother-in-law, and husband too, if she neglects to discharge her duties as general domestic drudge'