In ancient China, Yanjing Eight Palace Handicrafts were specially used by the royal family. However, they are active in the diplomatic arena as national gifts nowadays. Ordinary people can only watch and enjoy them in places like museums. The so-called Yanjing Eight Palace Handicrafts refer to cloisonné enamel, jade carvings, ivory carving, carved lacquerware, inlaid gold lacquer wares, filigree, imperial carpet, and Beijing embroidery. Representing the essence of folk handicrafts all over the country, these items have peaked Chinese traditional handicraft art in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911 AD) and grown into a palace art with “Beijing style”. Each of the eight handicrafts is beautiful, delicate and exquisite, astonishing the whole world.
Techniques of making cloisonné enamel
Technically called “fetal copper filigree enamel”, Beijing cloisonne enamel matured during the Jingtai year of the Ming Dynasty (1450- 1457 AD), hence getting the name Jing Tai Lan (cloisonné). Using copper as a mold, craftsmen first flatten the thin and fine copper wire to make various patterns by hand, then pinch, weld and paste them on the cooper mold. The patterns were colored with enamel glaze, and the product would be finished after firing, polishing, gold plating and other procedures.
Cloisonné is a technique when foreign and local metal enamel craft met and melted with each other. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, special enamel workshops were founded in Beijing for imperial families, bringing about an amazing period for this technique. In modern times, social unrest has interrupted the production of cloisonné, leading a declined period. After 1949, this art has rapidly been restored and developed due to the active protection and support policies adopted by the government.
With complicated techniques and many procedures, Beijing cloisonné has combined bronze and enamel crafts and inherited traditional painting and metal chiseling arts, reflecting the mutual learning tradition between various Chinese crafts. Elegant in shape, diverse in patterns and rich in color, cloisonné crafts feature the palace art, giving people the artistic feeling of “round and strong, golden and splendid”. These works enjoy a high artistic value, showing their beauty in many important exhibitions at home and abroad, which win much honor for China. They also serve as national gifts for foreign guests.
Under the impact of market economy, the art quality and technical level of Beijing cloisonné have declined with a large number of defective products flooding into the market, causing a very bad impact due to the poor operation of some practitioners. To view and appreciate the authentic cloisonne, you can go to Beijing Enamel Factory. As China’s the only time-honored brand in cloisonné industry, Beijing Enamel Factory is the protection demonstration base for cloisonne production technology of national intangible cultural heritage. It is one of the first batches to be selected into the national intangible cultural heritage list. As the national industrial tourism demonstration site, it is the only enterprise that has won the gold cup of Hundred Flowers Award of Chinese arts and crafts.
Visit Site: Beijing Enamel Factory
Tel.: 010-67211677
Transportation: Taking Line 14 to Exit NE, Jingtai Station. Walking 200m along to the east. Turning south at the first intersection, and going on for 100m.
Address: No.10, Anlelin Road, Yongwai Area, Dongcheng District, Beijing
Beijing Embroidery
Beijing embroidery, also known as palace embroidery, is an ancient traditional craft of Han nation, which is the general name of embroidery products produced in Beijing. It is mainly used for palace decoration and clothing, famous for its exquisite materials, consummate skills and elegant style. The procedure is extremely exquisite and careful, which include seven basic steps.
(I) Primary design
Some of the embroidered patterns are designed according to the ancient Chinese traditional patterns, some of them are new and innovative, but they all adhere to the tenet that the patterns must have their meaning of being auspicious and pleasant.
(II) Pattern-drawing
When it comes to the embroidered patterns, attention must be paid to the positive meaning of the patterns.
(III) Plate-making
Make plates according to the pattern drawn before. Fine and smooth process is required when making plates.
(IV) Material-selecting
When selecting material for making Beijing embroidery, For the material of Beijing embroidery, the best satin is generally selected as the fabric with natural silk as the thread. In this way, the embroidered piece is light and soft, bringing a comfortable hand feeling.
(V) Color-matching
Beijing embroidery enjoys well-distributed color matching and flexible color transition. All kinds of patterns are widely used due to the complex use of embroidery thread color.
(VI) Stretching
Before starting embroidery, it is necessary to tightly stretch the embroidery piece on the frame, and then press and pull the frame.
(IV) Embroidering
Beijing embroidery stresses on meticulous embroidery, lively stitching, and elegant colors, with the characteristics of being “flat, neat, harmonious, bright, smooth and well-distributed”.
Visit Site: Daoxianghu Intangible Cultural Heritage Science Museum
Tel.: 010-62523780
Transportation: Taking Line 16 to Exit WS, Daoxianghu Station.
Address: No.28, Daoxianghu Road, Sujiatuo Town, Haidian District, Beijing
Carved lacquer
With the Beijing carved lacquer technique, the craftsman applies natural paint on the mold in a certain thickness, and then uses a knife to engrave the pattern on the piled flat lacquer mold. Products of carved lacquer feature plain and solemn shape, delicate ornamentation, bright luster, and elegant appearance. It is also of moisture-proof, heat, acid and alkali resistant, and not deteriorating, together with the property of non-deformation. It mirrors the superb craftsmanship and wisdom of craft artists in China, and exists as the treasure of Chinese traditional handicraft.
Originated in the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD), the carved lacquer finally settled in Beijing after the development in the Dynasties of Yuan, Ming and Qing due to the special political, economic and cultural background of Beijing. In the course of hundreds of years of development, it has merged and integrated the mastery of carved lacquer in south and north of China, becoming one of the outstanding representatives of Chinese painted lacquer crafts. In the thirtieth years of Emperor Guangxu’s reign (1904 AD), artists Xiao Le’an and Li Maolong opened the first modern folk lacquer manufacturing workshop in Beijing, named “Jiguzhai”. After 1949, Beijing government called together the folk successors of “Jiguzhai” to build carved lacquer production co-operatives. In 1958, it was transformed into Beijing Carved Lacquer Factory, which became the main place for the inheritance and development of Beijing carved lacquer craft.
With various types and rich themes, the design and creation of the craft products often combine carving, painting and craftwork, enjoying a solemn and elegant artistry. It is irreplaceable in the improvement of people’s aesthetic literacy and beautification of life in modern society. As an indispensable important content for the study of Chinese traditional craft art, Beijing carved lacquer embodies China’s long history of lacquer craft culture tradition.
In the 1990s, the carved lacquer industry shrank and declined due to its transformed market, long production cycle, large investment and changed management system. Beijing Carved Lacquer Factory was only an empty title. Fewer and fewer real hand-carving products were made. The craftsmen were aging but there were no newcomers. All these were the cruel facts that the industry was facing. Under this circumstance, Beijing carved lacquer, which has lasted for hundreds of years, is on the verge of being lost.
Visit Site: Beijing Qi Baoge
Tel.: 13611364098
Transportation: Taking Line 5 to Exit SE, Tiantandongmen Station.
Address: Inside the East Gate of Longtanhu Park, Dongcheng District, Beijing
Jade carvings
Beijing jade carving, also known as “Beijing jade”, is a kind of jade carving skill spread in Beijing. Dating from Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368 AD), its founder is Qiu Chuji, a Taoist of Quanzhen Taoism. In the Ming Dynasty, the royal court set up a jade workshop, bringing together the national masters of jade carving, and the palace jade carving industry in Beijing appeared to be prosperous from that time. And the jade carving crafts reached a historical peak in the Qing Dynasty for the popularity of jade in Beijing. After 1911, Beijing’s folk jade carving has become increasingly prosperous with the rise of talented and amazing artisans such as Pan Bingheng, Liu Deying, He Rong and Wang Shusen who pushed Beijing jade carving into a new historical stage. After the founding of PRC, the jade carving industry enjoyed a rapid development, once reaching a new high of thousands of craftsmen involving. There once a positive state of talents gathering and skills striving for new surprises. Four jadeite national treasures, Daiyue Qiguan (Magnificent View of Mount Tai), Hanxiang Jurui (Spherical Aroma Diffuser), Sihai Huanteng (Jade Screen with Dragons Soaring in the Cloud), Qunfang Lansheng (A Jadeite Basket of Flower), boast their elaborate crafts, beautiful shape and extremely high artistic standards. They are even awarded by the State Council.
With the good reputation as “real materials and exquisite crafts”, Beijing jade carvings inherit the tradition of palace jade craftsmanship. It has exquisite materials, fineness workmanship and many varieties, being able to produce utensils, characters, flowers, birds and beasts, bonsai, jewelry, etc. Beijing jade carving skills include many steps such as material selecting, material cleaning, material cutting, designing, grinding and polishing. The style of the jade is vigorous and decorous, dignified and elegant with exquisite, smooth, bright and simple decoration, reflecting the superb technology level.
Visit Site: Baigongfang Handicrafts Museum
Tel.: 010-67111381
Transportation: Taking Line 5 to Exit NE, Tiantandongmen Station.
Address: No. 12, B, Guangming Road, Dongcheng District, Beijing
Ivory carving
Ivory carving refers to the carving technique and finished products using ivory as the material. The ivory carving in Beijing differs from that in Guangzhou.
It can be traced back to at least two thousand years ago. In the later historical development course, the local craftsmen and the excellent craftsmen who migrated from other places or were recruited to Beijing have continued to learn from each other. After hundreds of years of practice, Beijing ivory carving has a dignified palace art style, forming a unique technological feature. It once declined in the last years of the Qing Dynasty. Later, thanks to the efforts of Yang Shihui and his successors, the ancient craft was revived.
The ivory carving has a sense of beauty of noble and unsullied because of the quality of the ivory material, thus becoming a part of China’s special arts and crafts. With a wide range of themes, Beijing ivory carving is complex and difficult in craft, and skills are inherited by oral and heart-to-heart teaching. Since the 1980s, ivory trade has been banned in the world in order to protect the elephant population. It pushes Beijing ivory carving, which completely relies on imported ivory raw materials, into a dire strait. This technique faces a situation of no raw materials and no younger successors. In recent years, the international trade has begun to abandon the rigid trade ban and allow the ivory in stock to be in deal. Even so, it cannot solve the problem that no one inherits Beijing ivory carving.
Visit Site: Baigongfang Handicrafts Museum
Tel.: 010-67111381
Transportation: Taking Line 5 to Exit NE, Tiantandongmen Station.
Address: No. 12, B, Guangming Road, Dongcheng District, Beijing
Filigree inlaying
As a traditional palace craft, filigree inlaying mainly uses materials as gold, silver to make crafts through inlaying gems, pearls or weaving and other processes. With complicated craft, the filigree inlaying process can be roughly divided into eight methods: pinch, fill, gather, weld, pile, build, knit and weave. It enjoys exquisite skills, beautiful shapes, diverse patterns, and traditional artistic characteristics. The products are generally divided into two categories: one is filigree, that is, drawing gold and silver into filaments, and crafts are made by piling, building, weaving and other techniques; the other is inlaying, hammering gold and silver into vessels, and then carving the design, inlaying with gems and pearls.
With a long history, filigree inlaying can date back to as early as the Spring and Autumn Period, reaching a superb level in the Ming Dynasty. After the Qing Dynasty, it brings about greater development with fine products continuously emerging, enjoying good reputation at home and abroad. The filigree inlaying technique in Beijing and in Dachang Hui Autonomous County of Hebei Province has remarkable characteristics, being the most famous in the industry.
Known for its weaving and stacking, Beijing filigree inlaying often uses kingfisher craft, that is, attaching the blue-green feathers of kingfishers to gold and silver products to enhance the artistic effect. The craftsmen in old Beijing mostly live in Tongzhou. The Beijing Filigree Inlaying Factory, established in 1958, is the main filigree manufacturer, the products of which are mostly used for export. At the end of the 1980s, the factory’s export volume decreased sharply, showing a decline trend. In 2002, Beijing Filigree Inlaying Factory declared bankruptcy. At present, the skill has been lost for lacking of successors. It is in urgent need of inheritance and protection.
The technique of filigree inlaying in Dachang has already appeared in the Han Dynasty. During the emperor Yongle’s reign in the Ming Dynasty, the emperor moved the capital to Beijing. Craftsmen of the western regions moved together with Ming to the north and settled down in Dachang Hui areas. They had brought traditional Persian patterns and handmade skills, carrying the filigree inlaying technique to a new high. In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Dachang’s crafts developed rapidly, and the products were regarded as tributes by the court. With complex crafts, Dachang filigree inlaying process includes many steps as designing, material selecting, mold making, drawing, scribing, wire making, wire sticking, wire welding, activating(with strong acid), washing, gem selecting, sticking, combination, gold plating, silver plating, etc. With various shapes, rich patterns and skillful manufacture, the products have high artistic value. Dachang’s filigree inlaying technique used to be taught by fathers and sons, and then there was an inheritance way of teachers and students. Ma Zuowen, Master of Mengzanshixiang (a type of filigree inlaying), was known for his crafts Potala Palace and The Golden Seal of the 12th Panchen that he made with his students.
Visit Site: Museum for Yanjing Eight Palace Handicrafts of Beijing
Tel: 8610-68611900
Transportation: Taking Line 1 to Exit B or C, Pingguoyuan Station. Taking bus No. 527 to Moshikou Dongli Station. Walking 50m to the south and turning right at the first traffic light (Moshikou Street). Walking 200m to the opposite of Beijing No.9 Middle School (North Gate).
Address: No. 20, Moshikou Street, Shijingshan District, Beijing
Gold lacquer inlaying
Gold lacquer inlaying is an important category of traditional Chinese lacquer crafts, boasting a history of more than 7,000 years. Beijing is an important lacquerware production area in history. The rise of government handicraft workshops, such as the Paint Bureau in the Yuan Dynasty, the orchard factory in the Ming Dynasty and the manufacturing office in the Qing Dynasty, laid a foundation for the development of Beijing lacquerware. Today’s gold lacquer inlaying in Beijing has directly inherited and developed the art of lacquer making in the Ming and Qing Dynasties from many aspects, such as crafts and techniques, art style and so on.
It enjoys various crafts, extensive subjects, rich and colorful artistic expression technique. For instance, the inlaid products are clear and delicate; the painted products are colorful and brilliant; the carved and filled products have smooth lines and magnificent shapes; the carved and painted products are sharp and vivid; the broken lines products are simple and elegant; the tiger-skin painted products are colorful and close to natural. It can be divided into many types by its use, such as utensils, furniture, screens, plaques, and wall decorations. With a high value of art research and collection, convenient and practical products, this ancient handicraft is deeply loved by consumers.
Visit Site: Museum for Yanjing Eight Palace Handicrafts of Beijing
Tel: 8610-68611900
Transportation: Taking Line 1 to Exit B or C, Pingguoyuan Station. Taking bus No. 527 to Moshikou Dongli Station. Walking 50m to the south and turning right at the first traffic light (Moshikou Street). Walking 200m to the opposite of Beijing No.9 Middle School (North Gate).
Address: No. 20, Moshikou Street, Shijingshan District, Beijing
Beijing imperial carpet
As our national handicraft technique full of ethnic characteristics, the craftsmanship of hand-wool velvet carpet weaving twists the wool thread and makes it into a knot, which is planted on the carpet base made of interwoven warp and weft cotton threads to form a high surface. Weaving carpets with wool thread started in the Neolithic Age in China. Carpet weaving in the Eastern Han (25-220 AD) has reached a very high level from the perspective of double-pile wool threaded carpets unearthed in the Luobupo area of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Han Tomb in Minfeng County. In Tang Dynasty, the court and the house of the rich both laid carpets. In the Yuan Dynasty, the palace set up shearing carpet workshops influenced by the lifestyle of the Mongolian people. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, carpet weaving developed rapidly in places as Gansu, Xinjiang, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Beijing, etc.
The carpet weaving skills include steps such as designing, weaving, flattening, cutting (cutting the flat pattern to stereoscopic form with scissors), washing the carpet, and arranging. Some wool threads of carpets are still dyed with ancient plant dyes. China’s carpets are not only a necessity for the lives of ethnic minorities, but also exports in great quantities. The pattern of the carpet absorbs the features of ancient bronzes, embroidery, brocade, porcelain and so on. Different artistic characteristics are even showed in carpets of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Ningxia, Tibet and other places.
Beijing hand-made carpet used to be called “Guanfang carpet”, also known as “Palace carpet”. The carpet weaving skills were introduced into China from the Western Regions in the Western Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-24 AD). By the Tang Dynasty, it had been roughly mature in the central plain regions. In the Yuan Dynasty, the carpet weaving industry flourished with large-scale carpet workshops appearing. In the Ming Dynasty, the official carpet weaving institutions began to weave high-quality official carpets. After the Qing Dynasty, the patterns of official carpets in Beijing gradually formed an artistic style in which multi-ethnic colors and patterns merged.
Since the 20th century, Beijing imperial carpets have been further developed. In 1900, it won a gold medal at the Paris World Expo in France. In 1920, there were 354 imperial carpet workshops in Beijing, becoming one of the main producing areas of Chinese carpets. In 1956, the first Beijing carpet factory with public-private operation was established, which was later merged with the third carpet association and renamed as “Xicheng Carpet Factory”, and later “the No. 5 Beijing Carpet Factory” in 1965. From the late 1970s to the early 1990s, the exported Beijing imperial carpet was in its heyday, gaining a wide international reputation.
There are three main aspects of Beijing hand-made carpet weaving skills: one is to use professional equipment, i.e. machine beam; the second is to use special tools and measuring tools for carpet weaving; the third is to divide the carpet weaving technology into two types, i.e. drawstring carpet weaving and drawstring carpet weaving. The production process of it is mainly composed of three steps: preliminary preparation, carpet forming and beautification and finishing, which are characterized by: first, fine design and perfect conception; second, careful material selection and accurate wiring; third, meticulous and excellent processing. Fully reflecting the characteristics of traditional Chinese culture and Beijing court art, the handmade carpet is called “Beijing-style carpet” in the industry. Based on that, it makes its development in the folk, making it have a royal style and a folk charm at the same time.
Visit Site: Museum for Yanjing Eight Palace Handicrafts of Beijing
Tel: 8610-68611900
Transportation: Taking Line 1 to Exit B or C, Pingguoyuan Station. Taking bus No. 527 to Moshikou Dongli Station. Walking 50m to the south and turning right at the first traffic light (Moshikou Street). Walking 200m to the opposite of Beijing No.9 Middle School (North Gate).
Address: No. 20, Moshikou Street, Shijingshan District, Beijing
