Examining a Treasure Trove

By YU LINTAO

By DING WENLEI

Examining a Treasure Trove

By YU LINTAO

A portrait of Emperor Yong Zheng(1678-1735) of the Qing Dynasty

A royal stamp of the Qing Dynasty

ZHOU HUIMIN

A white jade tea set

The Palace Museum inventories its collection

For the first time in history, curators of the Palace Museum have finally inventoried the museum’s vast collection.After seven years of painstaking work,the museum finally released the results of its first comprehensive inventory on January 26, showing that the museum houses 1,807,558 items.

About 93 percent of the museum’s collection are national-level protected cultural relics. An additional 115,491 items are ordinary cultural relics, while 7,577 items are pieces of royal porcelain.

“This is the fi fth survey of the treasures in the museum, but it is the fi rst time that the museum has established exactly how many pieces of treasure it houses since the museum was founded on October 10, 1925,” said Chen Lihua, Deputy Curator of the museum.

Bits of treasure

“The most remarkable point of this survey is about the articles for daily use of the royal members,” said Chen.

Eighty-five percent of the items in the museum are imperial pieces from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), including bronze ware, timepieces, jade, ceramics, paintings and calligraphy, historical documents and ancient books.

In the past, articles used by emperors and empresses in their daily lives were not considered to be cultural relics. Thus, about 700,000 such items were previously treated as common objects; and some helmets and pieces of armor were therefore moved out of the palace.Since the 1980s, museum experts began to rethink this procedure. They felt these objects were as valuable as historic buildings and other cultural relics. Paintings by emperors and empresses, carpets, pillows, curtains and waist tags of guards and so on were recorded in the museum’s treasure list for the fi rst time in the museum’s 85-year history.

“For a long time, the Palace Museum was only regarded as a museum of ancient art, thus people didn’t pay much attention to objects used by the imperial court in their daily lives. For example, paintings of royal family members are generally not of great artistic value; therefore, they were not seriously treated and protected. However, from another perspective, those paintings can truly re fl ect the daily life of the royal family and the artistic ideas of royalty,” said Lou Wei,head of the cultural relic department of the Palace Museum.

The latest survey was conducted at the same time as the renovation of the historic buildings of the Forbidden City, where the Palace Museum is located. The renovation is supposed to be completed in 2020. The fi rst stage of the project was fi nished in 2008.

During the process of survey and renovation, storerooms for the treasures were upgraded. Equipment and conditions for storage and maintenance have been improved, and earthquake-resistant systems have been upgraded. At the same time, the management system of the museum was also greatly improved.

Five surveys

Since the museum experienced several periods of social unrest in its history, it never completed a comprehensive inventory of its collection before. Earlier partial surveys were undertaken in 1924, 1954, 1978 and 1991, respectively.

After the first survey, which was completed in 1930, a 28-volume survey report was compiled cataloguing more than 1.17 million items housed in the museum.

In the 1930s, when the Japanese army invaded northeast China, the museum’s treasures were moved south. Before the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, the Kuomintang authorities moved part of those treasures to Taiwan, and the Palace Museum in Taipei was established to house the treasures. It is reported that about 650,000 treasures were stored in Taipei.

The second survey of the museum’s collection was carried out in 1954, the fi rst survey after the founding of New China.By then the collection of the museum had changed considerably. On one hand, some treasures had been moved to Taiwan; on the other hand, many treasures were donated to the museum by private collectors and state organs or were recovered from other locations. At that time, the collection of the museum accounted for about 14.3 percent of all collected cultural relics in China.

Nowadays, the museum still collects valuable paintings and calligraphy from the contemporary era. In addition, some recently unearthed cultural relics have also been added to its collection. Thus, the museum’s collection continues to increase.

Spherical astrolabe decorated with gold and pearl

Marten and pearl crown of a Qing Dynasty empress

A volume from the series on collection of the Palace Museum

The Palace Museum

Located in the center of Beijing, the Palace Museum was established in the Forbidden City, a royal palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1911), to preserve and display its treasures. Founded in 1925, the museum is the largest museum in the country.

The museum houses more than 1.8 million valuable art works, most of which belonged to the imperial families of the Ming and Qing dynasties. The collection includes paintings, pottery, gold and silver artifacts, embroidery, sculpture, jade, lacquer and enamel ware. In addition, the collection includes jewels, accessories, clocks, medicines, furniture and furnishings used by the imperial court.

In 1961, the Forbidden City was included in the List of Key Historical Monuments Under State Protection. In 1987, it was included on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. The Palace Museum used to be as mysterious as the palace itself. But now,with advanced technology and equipment, it has created a “digital palace” on the Internet, with its cultural treasures available for the world to enjoy.

(Source:dpm.org.cn)

Palace on paper

After the latest survey, the museum has decided to compile a comprehensive catalogue of the collection and a series of books introducing parts of the collection in the Palace Museum, which will have a paper edition and an electronic version respectively. The electronic version will be placed on the museum’s of fi cial website.

The series will feature 150,000 of the most typical and representative treasures among all the items, which fall into 26 categories, including sculpture, jade, bronze,paintings, furniture, enamel, and is expected to reach 500 volumes. The publishing of the series is such a big project that it is hailed as a “palace on paper.” Already, the volumes of sculpture, jade and enamel have been completed. The first six volumes of the painting part have been fi nished.

The content about sculpture comprises nine volumes in all, recording 2,000 precious sculptures, with great value in terms of archaeological and historical research.

The 10 volumes of the jade part selected more than 3,000 representative jade items from the Stone Age to the Qing Dynasty,including tools, weapons, sacri fi cial vessels,jade pendants, adornment articles and stationery. The jade pieces are arranged according to period, shape, quality and decorative pattern, in order to show directly the development and variation among jade items from different ages and the characteristics of each different period.

About 7,000 enamel items were selected for the part of enamel, which in all comprises fi ve volumes. Those items are mainly from the period from the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) to the modern era.

“For most people, the cultural relics collected in the Palace Museum are very mysterious. The series aims to present those treasures that represent the ancient civilization of China to the whole world. The publication of the data about those treasures will be of great signi fi cance for the protection of the Forbidden City and the exploration of its cultural signi fi cance, especially as regards historical and archaeological study,”said Zheng Xinmiao, Curator of the Palace Museum.

Zheng said the museum is a great treasure house with many precious collections and ancient books as well as historical data.It should not only be well protected but also be utilized well. The museum should be open to everyone, giving full play to its value in academic research, art appreciation and cultural communication. He said he hopes that the book series on the museum’s collection will transform those treasures from merely artifacts belonging to the royal family into real wealth for the entire society.

By DING WENLEI