Forbidden City: About the Exhibition

An introduction to the exhibition

Under the Qing rulers, the heart of China was a walled city-within-a-city in Beijing. Known as the Forbidden City, it was not only the private residence of the emperor and his family, but also a center of scholarship, religion, culture, and politics. Covering 178 acres and surrounded by a broad moat and high wall, this fortress palace was off limits to everyone except those on official imperial business. A key element of the exhibition is the recreation of selected rooms from the imperial palace, featuring actual objects used by the emperor.

Into this closed world, Qianlong was born in 1711, and became, in 1736, emperor of China. Under his careful rule the empire grew to the largest size it would ever achieve, and China enjoyed an era of unprecedented richness and stability. The exhibition opens with a selection of objects which stood as symbols of the emperor’s power, including dragon robes of imperial yellow silk, and one of the emperor’s seals, cast in solid gold.

Yet these symbols were backed by a remarkable record of achievement. Qianlong, in order to be an effective ruler, needed to be skilled in a wide variety of disciplines, and was notably successful in almost all aspects of rulership: he was a keen policy maker who charged through mountains of paperwork, a skilled military tactician and commander-in-chief of China’s army, and a hands-on administrator who actively toured his realm to get a first-hand picture of everything from troop installations to irrigation projects.

Continue through the highlights of the exhibition.

photos courtesy of Palace Museum, Beijing