The empress and top-tier consorts would also express rank through jewelry, whether ornate jade hairpins or tortoiseshell bangles that clinked on the arms. They also got the best shoes — the Qing elite were Manchus, from the northeast of China, and did not bind women’s feet. One extraordinary pair of pearl-festooned platform boots here, to be worn on horseback, would not have been out of place on “Soul Train.”

Though they sat at the heart of Chinese influence, the women at the Qing court were classified as the emperor’s “inalienable possessions.” Your best bet for moving up the ladder was to bear a son — since the imperial succession was merit-based, and any of the emperor’s boys could be his heir. A scroll painting here from around 1844 depicts the Daoguang emperor sitting beside a woman with a pinched faced and calm smile. Her name was Quan, and she entered the Forbidden City at the bottom of the heap, but was elevated in the imperial harem after giving birth to a boy. Check out the dress: she’s wearing yellow, and therefore has made it to the top.