Gongtingchuantongnangxia Making Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
The traditional palace fitted-case (nangxia) making craft is a component of the ancient Chinese craft of packaging objects. It is a traditional handicraft that has come down from the Qing dynasty court to the present, transmitted within the Palace Museum and radiating to Tibet, Guangxi, Heilongjiang and a dozen or so other provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities. From the Ming and Qing periods onwards, shops making brocade boxes of every size were found throughout the more economically developed regions of China, especially in the capital; the case workshop of the Qing imperial workshops (Zaobanchu) in the Forbidden City was particularly famed for its exquisite workmanship and singular ingenuity.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
A nangxia is an outer packaging container made to protect a cultural relic; it is made with special materials and a range of methods chosen according to such factors as the object's material, shape, dimensions and weight, and it guards against shock, wind, sunlight, damp and dust. The folk rhyme that tells of fine antiques kept in brocade cases, of cut cardboard deftly matched, of pasted silk and damask fitted with a glass lid, so that knocking does no harm, is a vivid portrayal of how nangxia are made and what they do. The raw materials used for nangxia are mainly paper products and cotton, and the temperature and humidity of the environment have a certain effect on them. The craft is practised mainly by pure handwork. Its specific process includes setting the style, calculating the dimensions, cutting the cardboard, drawing the datum lines for the clasps, gluing the outer box, gluing the recessed strip of the upper lid, joining the inner and outer seams, attaching the facing, fastening the clasps, fitting out the inner tray, forming the fitted bed, gluing the turnover flaps and fitting the low inner walls. To transmit the nangxia making craft one must learn not only the technique but also the aesthetic matching of cloths of various materials, of brocade patterns and of the objects to be contained. Palace nangxia pay attention to the matching of fabrics and colours and are excellent in both practicality and visual appeal. The internal structure of a nangxia is ingeniously designed, offering useful formal reference and technical support for modern packaging design.
Documented process steps
The craft is practised mainly by pure handwork. Its specific process includes setting the style, calculating the dimensions, cutting the cardboard, drawing the datum lines for the clasps, gluing the outer box, gluing the recessed strip of the upper lid, joining the inner and outer seams, attaching the facing, fastening the clasps, fitting out the inner tray, forming the fitted bed, gluing the turnover flaps and fitting the low inner walls.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
According to their different characteristics, nangxia may be divided into several types: soft, inverted, excavated, hard, and soft-and-hard combined. By category of cultural relic they may be divided into the book-slipcase type, the calligraphy and painting type, the ceramics and jade type, the bamboo, wood, ivory and horn type, and the metalwork and clock type. By style they may further be divided into the concealed-compartment type, the open-compartment combined type, the excavated-bed with concealed door type, the heaven-and-earth lid type and the sliding-drawer type.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The Palace Museum stands in the capital, Beijing, and is the largest museum in the country, founded on the Forbidden City, the imperial palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Its advantageous position, history and technical resources fostered the development and transmission of the nangxia making craft. After Puyi abdicated in 1912, this craft was dispersed among the people along with the case-makers of the imperial workshops. Today the traditional palace nangxia making craft has been transmitted for four generations in the Palace Museum, relying mainly on the master's oral instruction and personal example and on live demonstration, combined with observation of the actual nangxia made by the Qing imperial workshops and held in the museum and with the reading of large quantities of palace historical archives; through the practice of the Department of Conservation Science in making cases for all types of cultural relics, and together with research into new packaging materials and tools and with publicity and training for the craft, it advances the transmission and dissemination of the technique and its culture. Its making technique carries rich technical and cultural information and is of great value in protecting historical relics and in the study of traditional crafts and palace culture.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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