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In order to solve the problem of the age of the mounting paper in Yanxitang, we first used the engineering repair archives of the Archives Room of the Palace Museum provided by Yang Xincheng, a teacher of the archives group, and preliminarily speculated that the surface paper may be the paper used to remount the paste during the renovation in the 1950s.
Aerial view of the Temple of the Heart
In the actual survey, the mounting group consulted Lei Yong, director of the Ministry of Culture and Security Science and Technology, who recommended that the building mounting paper could be uncovered in reverse layer by layer in the reconstruction of the framed painting, and then carefully analyzed one by one, so that there may be new discoveries. Director Lei soon brought the "rescue soldiers", the "heroes" in the framed studio of the Ministry of Culture and Technology (if you have seen the documentary "I Repair Cultural Relics in the Forbidden City", it is estimated that you can know that they are all extraordinary).
One of the crack repair processes of the wall of the chamber with the repair of fish scales sprinkled at the crack of the mounting paper in the room (a method of mounting paper repair, the paper is arranged in the shape of fish scales
The mounting group first chose the rear eaves wall of the east sub-room of Yanxitang as an example - because this wall has begun to peel off due to the serious moisture return of the ground, the paper along the wall has begun to fall off, which is very conducive to removal.
As a strong back-up, Hou Yan and Yu Li, two teachers from the framed studio of the Ministry of Culture and Technology, brought their own tools - although the tools were as simple as only brushes, buckets, bamboo qizi and color palette knives, but with their skillful hands and rich practical experience, the follow-up work made everyone marvel: Hou Yan teacher was responsible for unveiling the paper, Yu Li teacher assisted, the two cooperated tacitly - first dipped in water with a brush to make the facial paper slightly wet, and then slowly began to peel up from the upper left corner after the water penetrated into the paper.
With the chamber wall crack repair process no. 2 Fish scale paper strip at the crack covered with a layer of paper and then patted with a brown brush
In the process of uncovering, everyone waited with bated breath, and after about half an hour, the first piece of paper was removed intact! Everyone couldn't help but sigh in their hearts, "What a God!"
The traditional craftsmanship of the Qing Dynasty was originally "reversible".
Then, as the surface layer was fully removed and the lower layer of mounting paper was revealed, everyone was very excited and decided to continue to uncover. The next layer of paste was so tightly bonded that it took half a day to uncover a piece of mulberry paper on the bottom floor.
The third of the crack repair process of the wall of the chamber is the complete life extension silver printing paper with the surface layer of the crack in the chamber
Further down was a piece of paper that looked a little yellow, and it felt like it was hard, much like kraft paper—everyone couldn't believe their eyes: how could it be that the kraft paper, in the process of continuing to uncover, quickly found that this very kraft paper had the blue word "Jinxi" on it, followed by the word "cement factory" and the cement number.
Everyone was stunned, holding their breath and staring closely at Teacher Hou's hand, little by little, the answer was finally revealed - this "kraft paper" turned out to be a cement bag, and the date was printed on it: "55.12.29", indicating that it was produced in 1955. I couldn't believe my eyes, Empress Dowager Cixi's Yanxi Hall wall mounting layer actually had cement bags from the 1950s.
The blue characters "Specimen Number" and Date "55.12.29" of cement produced by Jinxi Cement Factory can be seen on the brown paper removed from the back eaves wall of Yanxi Hall
The mood of all the people present was mixed, but what was in front of them was the real history.
A difficult problem in the survey of Yanxitang's mounting paste was overcome, and combined with the post-liberation repair archives, it was comprehensively judged that the building was framed on white paper in 1956.
A small clump of dragon-pattern silver printed paper at the wooden panel patch of the west gable between the west branches of the Tishun Hall
In the early days of the founding of New China, the maintenance of ancient buildings in the Forbidden City was very tight, and the mounted base paper was made of recycled cement bags.
The west walled house north of the third room under the eaves of the large ten-thousand-character peony pattern silver printing paper
Today, Yangxindian has become a research conservation project, scientific research is placed in the first place, and our restoration work has the conditions to be restored according to the original raw material process.
Original author: Ji Lifang (Senior Engineer, Department of Ancient Construction, Palace Museum)
Original source: "Forbidden City" December 2019 issue "Su Paper Words New Matters, Ingenuity Exists Forever, Nourishing Heart Temple Mounting Paste Survey Chronicle" (due to limited space, the original text has been deleted)