Chinese Opera Puppet

Dressed in fine silks trimmed with embroidered bands and tassels, this puppet brought the glory of the imperial court to the small stage as part of an early 20th-century puppet opera. Complete with songs, acrobatics, farce, and drama, Chinese puppet theater rivaled full-scale theater productions for its high level of refinement and spectacle. In fact, it is thought that statuettes used in ancient funerary rites precipitated actor’s theater, which adopted its dramatic gestures and accentuated make up from the movement and decoration of puppets.