Abstract: Illustrated Imperial Tribute Bearers of the Qing features captioned portraits of 17 subgroups of the Luo peoples in the border areas of Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan provinces in the early and middle Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). These portraits, in turn, feature traditional Luo costumes, mainly including hi-hats, wraps, bronze earrings, short coats, shawls, pleated skirts and bare feet. These colorful Luo costumes show the needs of the Luo peoples to adapt to the natural environment for convenience in labor on the one hand and, on the other hand, reflect facts of the Luo society at that time, such as imbalanced social development across different areas and work division between the sexes. Costumes depicted herein represent not only the aesthetics philosophy of the Luo peoples, but also demonstrate their social change process characterized by nationality identity in the early and middle Qing Dynasty.

Key words: Illustrated Imperial Tribute Bearers of the Qing, subgroup of the Luo peoples, costume culture, characterization