This is a bridal chair from a Chinese wedding.
The plaque reads: "On the morning of her wedding day a Chinese bride sits in the groom's family bridal chair, which has brought her from home. With sad farewells she has parted from her own family, to which she no longer belongs. Her impressive dowry, displayed by the procession on the road, gives prestige to her family as the beauty of the bridal chair gives prestige to the groom's. Both dowry and chair testify to a wedding properly performed. In traditional China, such assurance was critical. Traditionally she wears a veil. The groom may never have seen her before he removes the veil after she arrives at his family home.
The backdrop depicts a village in Shantung, in northeastern China, the province where Confucius was born and lived and a region with much ancient tradition. The early 20th-century wedding chair, of wood, kingfisher feathers, copper wire, gilt and glass was probably made in southern China."
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