Juanqinzhai, new treasures revealed at Beijing’s Forbidden City

A project undertaken by the New York-based World Monuments Fund and Beijing’s Palace Museum was completed earlier this month, giving visitors a chance to see a suite of imperial chambers closed since the last Chinese emperor Puyi was expelled from the Forbidden City in 1924.

Juanqinzhai, or the “Studio of Exhaustion From Diligent Service,” as the ensemble is charmingly called, will be open for viewing in early 2009.

It is located in the northeast quadrant of the Forbidden City (best reached from the northern gate, beneath Jingshan Park) and is part of the Qianlong Garden complex, created as the retirement quarters of Qing emperor Qianlong who ruled China at the peak of its prosperity from 1736 to 1795.

A lover of the fine arts, Qianlong commissioned China’s best craftsmen to decorate Juanqinzhai with sumptuous jade inlay, bamboo marquetry and one-of-a-kind silk murals using western trompe l’oeil technqiues.

Meanwhile, Chinese artisans and western conservationists continue to work on other parts of Qianlong Garden in the hope of completing restoration of the whole complex by 2017.

–Susan Spano, Los Angeles Times staff writer

[Photos: www.wmf.org]

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This entry was posted on Sunday, November 30, 2008 at 11:15 am by Susan Spano and is filed under Asia, China. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.