Ice-skating Shoes (Late Qing Dynasty)

Collected by the Palace Museum

The upper part of the ice-skating shoes are made of wood; each shoe with two strips fastened on two sides; the soles of shoes are fixed with steel blades to make them slide on the ice.

Painted scroll of Skating (Qing Dynasty)

Collected by the Palace Museum

Sports on the ice play an important role in China’s ancient sports, which has become the main sports activities of winter in northern China in the Qing Dynasty.

This painted scroll represents the spectacle of playing on the ice. According to the rule of Qing Dynasty, there were about 1400 players in an ice-skating competition; accompanied by nobles, royal officials and attendants, the emperor would make an appearance at the competition. There were 3 goals in the competition ground, each of them hanging a colored ball to serve as targets; the players rapidly skated along the twisting course marked on the ground to shoot the targets with arrows. The players would be given awards in light of their arrows hitting in the target.

The painting also depicted the acrobatics on ice, including pole-climbing, shooting and Cuju on ice and ancient figure skating was involved in it as well.