W300xH300mm, China
This is the head piece for Chinese opera, a crown used by the female warrior character, resembling the fighter’s helmet. It has one layer of pompons and thus known as word one crown (the chinese word for one is 一, a simple horizontal line)
Due to the age of this piece, some of its tassels and a few of the pompons have gone missing. The blue ornaments on the head piece are made from kingfisher feathers, tian tsui, a precious material. The kingfisher bird has an amazing blue colour, however the intense colour is not from the pigment of the feather but from the reflection of the light. Each piece of feather is painstakingly cut and inlay onto a metal gilt. A relatively thin sheet of precious metal (gold or silver) is formed, gold or silver wires are bent according to the design and placed on the edge of this area, then small pieces of the feather is glued into the recess area.
Mountain Folkcraft 