On Saturday, January 6, 2024, the 23rd stop of the "East of the Forbidden City: Scholarly Journey" readers' book selection activity walked into Guardian Bookstore.
Guardian Bookstore is located on the second floor of Guardian Art Center, a specialty boutique bookstore specializing in cultural relics, art, and collectible books. The bookstore cooperates with well-known publishing houses at home and abroad to select more than 1,000 kinds of art books. In addition to new books, we also try to display and sell some rare edition books.
In this activity, Dongcheng District Library collected 28 books such as "Inscription: 20th Century Vintage Brooch Art" and "Linlang: Qing Dynasty Court Glassware", worth more than 2,500 yuan. Mr. Zhou Ruixue, co-founder of Cavernist Yuyin, was also invited to lead readers to visit and explain the "Chengning Qiongying - Glass Boutique Exhibition from the Palace Museum".
The history of glass production in China can be traced back to the Western Zhou Dynasty. After a long history of ups and downs, the glass manufacturing industry was full of vitality in the Qing Dynasty represented by court glass. In the thirty-fifth year of Kangxi Reign (1696), the Qing Palace Office Glass Factory was established. Under the leadership of European missionaries, local craftsmen from Yanshenzhen (present-day Boshan, Shandong), Guangzhou and other places participated in the production. The tone for the exchange of Chinese and Western craftsmanship was laid at the beginning of the factory, drawing on advanced European technology while continuing and developing traditional Chinese glass techniques. During the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong periods, it created a dignified and graceful style, and at the same time contained a fresh style beyond the times. In the late Qing Dynasty, the state declined, and the production of Qing court glass went to a trough. At the same time, glass manufacturing in Europe and the United States developed rapidly with the blessing of the Industrial Revolution. A large number of Western and Oriental glass products entered the Forbidden City. The delicate and precious glassware of the Qing Dynasty court has gradually changed to everyday colors.
This exhibition is the fifth major thematic exhibition jointly launched by Guardian Art Center and the Palace Museum, and it is also the first large-scale exhibition of Chinese and Western glass relics and related research results from the 17th to the 20th centuries in recent years. The exhibition selects more than 120 pieces (sets) of glass cultural relics from the Palace Museum's collection, and uses three units: "Yao Yan Reflecting Color", "Bursting Fire and Flowing Gold" and "Flowing Scenery and Meditation", showing the color, shape, decoration, craftsmanship and use of glass products in court life in a multi-faceted way.
In the explanation, Mr. Zhou mentioned that the highlight of this exhibition is that this exhibition exhibits a total of more than 120 pieces of glass from the collection of the Palace Museum, which is rare in scale. The last large-scale glassware exhibition was in 2005, but the difference is that eighteen years later, there are many more rare glass boutiques in this exhibition, and some Western glassware imported from the Qing Dynasty is the first time to meet the public. In addition, there is also a glass stupa that is also on display for the first time, and it may be difficult to have the opportunity to exhibit it again in the future.
At the end of the explanation, Mr. Zhou concluded: Through this exhibition, we see not only more than 120 pieces of fine glass cultural relics of the Forbidden City, but also the incisive display of "middle school for the body, Western learning for use" on the domestic glassware of the Qing Dynasty. We can use these fine glass relics as a medium to explore the development history of glass manufacturing in the Qing Dynasty represented by court glass and the collision and integration of Chinese and Western cultures through the medium of glassware. Through the artistic appearance and production process used in each piece of glassware, we can see that the development of human civilization in the entire history knows no borders and no nationality. The emergence of different cultures, as well as the collision and exchange between different cultures, are based on people's needs. Demand is the first driving force to promote cultural development and civilization.
After listening to Mr. Zhou's explanation, many readers who were still unsatisfied returned to the exhibition hall and carefully watched the exhibits.
The 24th stop of the 2023 "East of the Forbidden City: Scholarly Tour" is Wangfujing Bookstore, on Saturday, January 20, at No. 218 Wangfujing Street, Dongcheng District, Beijing, with a quota of 30 people.