page_title: Mandarin square
section_title: Ming Dynasty
hierarchical_section_title: Mandarin square / Ming Dynasty
caption_attribution_description: English: Liu Daxia, politician of the Ming Dynasty. 中文: 劉大夏，明兵部尚書。
context_page_description: A mandarin square, also known as a rank badge, was a large embroidered badge sewn onto the surcoat of an official in Imperial China, Korea, Vietnam, and the Ryukyu Kingdom. It was embroidered with detailed, colourful animal or bird insignia indicating the rank of the official wearing it.
context_section_description: Mandarin squares were first authorized for wear in 1391 by the Ming Dynasty. The use of squares depicting birds for civil officials and animals for military officials was an outgrowth of the use of similar squares, apparently for decorative use, in the Yuan Dynasty. The original court dress regulations of the Ming Dynasty were published in 1368, but did not refer to badges as rank insignia. These badges continued to be used through the remainder of the Ming and the subsequent Qing Dynasty until the imperial system fell in 1912.
  Ming nobles and officials wore their rank badges on full-cut red robes with the design stretching from side to side, completely covering the chest and back. This caused the badges to be slightly trapezoidal with the tops narrower than the bottom. The Ming statutes never refer to the number of birds or animals that should appear on the badges. In the beginning, two or three were used. In a typical example of paired birds, they were shown in flight on a background of bright cloud streamers on a gold background. Others showed one bird on the ground with the second in flight. The addition of flowers produced an idealized naturalism.
caption: A 15th-century portrait of the Ming minister Liu Daxia. His mandarin square indicates that he was a civil official of the first rank.
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