How many items are in the Collection of the Forbidden City?
In December 2016, after completing the sixth collection of the Forbidden City, the figure was 1862690, of which 1683336 belonged to precious cultural relics.
Over the decades, some collections have been promoted to precious cultural relics, some because their value has not been "recognized", and some have disappeared in the warehouse.
And today we are going to talk about a broken mat, which is such a "fish that slipped through the net".
It is said that in the 1870s, the Forbidden City carried out a collection cleanup, and when the staff was cleaning a batch of straw mats, they found that one of the grass mats was also wrapped in a mat.
This mat is very distinctive, glowing with a faint luster of white.
After wiping the dust clean, the experts onlookers were surprised: ivory mat!
It turned out that this was the Yongzheng Emperor's anti-heat weapon, an ivory mat, which was paid tribute to a local official in Guangdong at that time.
Do not look down on this cool mat, it is 216 cm long, 139 cm wide, only 3 mm thick, all made of ivory.
Not only is it smooth and clean, but it can also be rolled up at will, and what is important is that on a hot summer day, it is simply impossible to lie on such a smooth and delicate, cool and silky mat.
More importantly, after hundreds of years, this ivory mat is still very tough, never broken, freely retracted, and must have been specially treated, but unfortunately no one can solve it so far.
For such a heat-proof weapon, the Yongzheng Emperor was naturally happy to blossom in his heart, but soon when he received a message, making such an ivory mat required 60 skilled craftsmen and took 18 months to complete.
The Yongzheng Emperor was a rare frugal emperor, he absolutely did not allow the word "luxury" to be linked to himself, in order to maintain the consistent "Ming Jun" style, the Yongzheng Emperor strictly ordered: prohibit the production of ivory mats!
After that, the Yongzheng Emperor put this ivory mat on the shelf and never used it again, and the process of making ivory mats in this way gradually lost with the passage of time.
In the last years of the Qing Dynasty, in order to maintain his luxurious life, Puyi constantly sold antiques and treasures in the palace.
In the chaotic palace, many eunuchs also wanted to touch the fish in muddy waters, swept Yongzheng's ivory cool in the grass mat, and wanted to take the opportunity to take it out of the palace.
Due to various reasons, the ivory mat was not as desired, and this ivory mat was shelved indefinitely.
According to the archives of the Qing Palace Office, there are 5 ivory mats like this in the country.
And only 3 pieces have been handed down, and the other two are mutilated and missing, so this ivory mat used by the Yongzheng Emperor is a rare treasure.
After that, industry experts valued it, saying that the ivory mat was worth at least 20 million yuan.
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