[Xinmin Evening News, Xinmin Network] Clocks and watches are a very special and precious category in the rich collection of the Qing Dynasty court. The Forbidden City's collection of clocks and watches occupies an important position in the world's watch collection. As the center of politics and court life in the Qing Dynasty, the Forbidden City and the Summer Resort have historically collected a large number of self-chiming clocks, which are of the same origin and inseparable from each other. "The Golden Age of Bells: A Group Exhibition of Tibetan Clocks and Watches in the Forbidden City and Chengde Mountain Resort"
Today in the Forbidden City Qianqing Palace officially launched to the outside world, the exhibition will be especially the two museums of 10 pairs of clocks and watches on the same stage, so that the audience can not only appreciate the different periods, different cultures, different regions of the clocks and watches, but also fully understand the qing dynasty court clock collection and furnishings, perceive the trajectory of the development and change of the Qing dynasty court concept of time.
Pictured: The scene of the clock exhibition.
The exhibition selects representative clock collections of the Palace Museum and the Chengde Summer Resort Museum, and displays them together, of which 40 clocks and watches are exhibited by the Palace Museum and 20 clocks and watches are exhibited by the Chengde Summer Resort Museum. The production age of these clocks continued from the 18th century to the beginning of the 20th century, covering not only the works of famous artists in Western countries such as Britain, France, switzerland, etc., but also the domestic products of the Qing Palace, Guangzhou, Suzhou and other places.
Pictured: 18th-century British copper gilded camel caravan pavilion turning clock.
Pictured: 18th-century British copper gilded trans-pavilion clock.
Pictured: 18th century British copper gilded self-opening man bell.
The clocks and watches of the Chengde Mountain Resort Museum exhibited this time are the most important parts of the museum's collection, which moved south with cultural relics in the 1930s and 1940s, and walked out of the summer resort for the first time in an overall appearance after being transported back to Chengde from Nanjing in 1956. The exhibition venue, the East Temple of the Qianqing Palace, was once the self-chiming bell of the Qing Palace in history.
Pictured: 18th-century Swiss copper gilded enamel bottle bird sound watch.
Pictured: Qing Dynasty Guangzhou copper gilded inlaid enamel turning flower gourd clock.
Pictured: Bronze gilded dome tower clock of the Qingqianlong Qing Palace Office.
It is understood that this exhibition is also another cooperation between the Palace Museum and the Chengde Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics following the signing of the strategic agreement in 2020 and the successful holding of the exhibition "Sumire Fushou: When Tashilhunpo Temple Meets the Summer Resort" exhibition at the Chengde Museum, and is a positive attempt by Chengde to implement the "going out" strategy with the support of the Palace Museum. In 2020, the Palace Museum cooperated with the Summer Resort Museum to establish the "Ancient Clock joint restoration laboratory" to restore the clocks and watches in the summer resort.
The exhibition is located in the Exhibition Hall of the Palace Museum's Qianqing Palace East Pavilion and will be open to the public from January 26 to May 8. According to the needs of epidemic prevention and control, the exhibition implements reservation admission, with a daily limit of 1,000 people, and some exhibits will continue to be exhibited at the Chengde Mountain Resort Museum after the exhibition ends. (Photo report by Du Yuao, reporter of Xinmin Evening News in Beijing)