Mounting and Restoration Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
Tianyige (Tianyi Pavilion) has spanned the Ming dynasty, the Qing dynasty, the Republic of China era, and the present day, and the transmission of its ancient-book restoration craft can be verified and reflected in the pavilion's historical records and in the books held in its collection.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Tianyige ancient-book restoration craft is a traditional manual skill handed down through generations in and around the Tianyige Library, in Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province. It forms a part of China's traditional mounting-and-restoration craft. Ningbo has a subtropical monsoon climate, lies near the sea, is rich in waterways, and receives heavy rainfall, so its environment stays humid year-round. Ancient books collected in the Ningbo area suffer more problems than those in the north—insect damage, rodent gnawing, rain soakage, and mildew—and it was from this that the ancient-book restoration craft gradually emerged. Centered on Tianyige, it spread step by step across the whole Ningbo area and onward to eastern Zhejiang and the Jiangsu–Zhejiang region. Restoring a complete volume of ancient books requires 28 process steps: investigating damage, drawing up a plan, selecting and matching repair paper, disassembling and lifting the leaves, cleaning the leaves, mending the leaves, damping and pressing flat, folding and trimming the leaves, hammering the leaves flat, aligning the margins and compressing, threading and tying, attaching the cover, binding with silk thread, and pasting in the bookmark. Among these, disassembling and mending the leaves are the core operations. There are four different lifting techniques—dry lifting, wet lifting, steaming lifting, and adhesive lifting—as well as such mending methods as dry patching, wet patching, backing-paper reinforcement, and concealed patching. Examples of restoration across the dynasties can be found, for instance, in such items from the pavilion's holdings as the Wenxian Tongkao, the Linzhou Shicao, and the Li Changji Geshizhujian.
Archival Process Record
Restoring a complete volume of ancient books requires 28 process steps: investigating damage, drawing up a plan, selecting and matching repair paper, disassembling and lifting the leaves, cleaning the leaves, mending the leaves, damping and pressing flat, folding and trimming the leaves, hammering the leaves flat, aligning the margins and compressing, threading and tying, attaching the cover, binding with silk thread, and pasting in the bookmark.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Tianyige ancient-book restoration craft is a regional body of experiential knowledge formed by successive generations of Ningbo book collectors and restorers—especially the Fan family of Tianyige—through continuous practice and accumulation in the course of collecting and protecting books, drawing on the distinctive geography, climate, materials, and cultural character of Jiangnan, and carried out chiefly by traditional manual methods. The Tianyige ancient-book restoration craft has a pronounced regional character. It is a restoration method designed specifically for the humid environment of Jiangnan, with strict requirements for repair paper, varied disassembly-and-lifting techniques, distinctive methods for mending tears, and an elegant, dignified binding. It is an important representative of the ancient-book restoration craft of the Jiangnan region.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Mounting and Restoration Craftsmanship · Mounting and Restoration Craftsmanship · Mounting and Restoration Craftsmanship · Mounting and Restoration Craftsmanship · Mounting and Restoration Craftsmanship · Mounting and Restoration Craftsmanship.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
At present, the community of transmitters of the Tianyige ancient-book restoration craft is concentrated within the Tianyige Museum, forming a transmission team centered on a provincial-level representative inheritor, with 13 people working full-time on ancient-book restoration and conservation. The inheritors and the transmission community also promote the living transmission, dissemination, and revitalization of the craft by compiling restoration plans, leading restoration projects, attending academic seminars at home and abroad, publishing professional papers, and taking part in various exhibitions, demonstrations, hands-on experiences, and study-tour activities. The Tianyige ancient-book restoration craft provides technical support and a strong safeguard for the protection and use of ancient books, and offers an unbroken model for the conservation and restoration of ancient books in the Jiangnan region. The transmission of this craft protects the precious holdings of the pavilion to the greatest extent possible, and stands as an important witness to and a powerful support for the enduring continuity of China's book-collecting culture.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Wang Xinjing 03-1401
- Fan Guangchou 04-1896
- Xu Jianhua 04-1897
- Du Weisheng 04-1898
- Wang Xuejun 04-1899
- Yang Zehua 05-2830
- Zhou Haikuan 05-2831
- Danjiajiu 05-2832
- Zhang Xuguang 05-2833
- Li Shuzhen 05-2834
- Ji Senfa
- Wan Qun
- Wang Jinyu
- Wang Qi
- Liu Jianming
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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