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University of Michigan History of Art Visual Resources Collection

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855 South University Avenue
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Palace Museum Archives Collection, 1963-1964

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Summary

Creator:
University of Michigan
Abstract:
The Palace Museum Archives Collection was part of a project from 1963 to 1964 to create and distribute a photographic record of the holdings of the National Palace Museum in Taiwan. The archive is composed of three primary collections, the National Palace Museum (NPMT), the Chinese Art Treasures (CAT), and Chien-Mu, and contains the negatives and master file prints of all the photographs taken throughout the project.
Extent:
26.5 linear feet
Language:
Chinese.
Authors:
Collection processed and finding aid created by Amy Barritt, April 2008, and Erin Platte, June 2014

Background

Scope and Content:

The Palace Museum Archives Collection was part of a project from 1963 to 1964 to create and distribute a photographic record of the National Palace Museum, Taiwan's holdings. The archive contains two main series, which reflect the two mediums of the collection, Negatives and Master Files. The Negatives were originally produced during the photograph reproduction project at NPMT, while the Master Files are the black and white prints of the negatives. These series are further divided by the three main collections that make up the PMA, the National Palace Museum (NPMT), the Chinese Art Treasures (CAT), and the Chien-Mu. The photographs and negatives within these collections are then arranged by the dynasty during which the original artwork was created and finally by the medium.

The NPMT and CAT both contain paintings, various albums, and various medias. The Painting series contains handscrolls, hanging scrolls, calligraphy, and portraits. The portraits contain approximately 79 portraits of various emperors of China. For many of them, the artist and the dynasty they were commissioned during are unknown. Several of the earliest paintings depict mythical emperors or subjects who did not have portraits painted of them during their lifetimes. The Various Albums contains approximately 42 multi-leaf painting albums and they contain various artists, subjects, and dynasties. The Various Medias series contains photographs of objects made from bronze, ceramic, fa-lang, ink stone, ink sticks, jade, k'ossu, lacquer, silver, or wood. The Chien-Mu collection only contains handscrolls, hanging scrolls, and various albums and these items are generally understood to be lesser or more unreliable in terms of authenticity than those found in the NPMT or CAT.

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Biographical / Historical:

The collection, now housed at the National Palace Museum in Taiwan, was originally created by the imperial rulers of China, especially the Qianlong emperor, born as Hongli and otherwise known as Emperor Chien-lung. Hongli was born September 25, 1711, as the grandson of the Kangxi emperor and son of the Yongzheng emperor. Qianlong became Emperor of China in 1736, and ruled for 60 years as one of the longest reigns in Chinese history. His rule was part of the Qing dynasty, which lasted from 1644 to 1912. The Qing dynasty was particularly significant in Chinese history because the ruling family was not ethnically Chinese but instead Manchurian. Scholars believe Qianlong was obsessed with gaining legitimacy as a Chinese ruler, and thereby increasing his power and hold over his subjects. Given the Chinese tradition of respecting art, one of the ways Qianlong sought to legitimize himself was by buying art to improve the inherited imperial collections (Stein, 1989).

Qianlong collected pieces from the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing dynasties, and the Five dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (618-1912 A.D.). He specially collected pieces created by the men he most wished to emulate, the Literati, who were typically bureaucrats and civil servants. Their art centered on the traits lauded by Chinese tradition, including moral refinement and strength of character. Artists often depicted these traits by attributing the subjects of their art with objects found in nature, such as mountains, bamboo plants, kittens and fruit. It is understood that Qianlong collected for quantity; he even encouraged his court artists to create works in mass-production, so he could actively and continuously display his artistic expression through collecting. Regardless of his personal tastes, Qianlong did collect many works and artists that scholars continue to consider the most significant of their respective dynasties, mediums, and styles (Stein, 1989).

Unfortunately, Qianlong's collection was never safe; succeeding emperors gifted pieces, noblemen borrowed pieces and never returned them, and others were stolen or sold to pawn brokers (NPMT, 2008). However, the bulk of the collection would survive through the revolution of 1912 and in 1914, the Republic of China made the collection available to the public by displaying it in the outer court of the Forbidden City. The collection remained there, with little supervision until October 10, 1925. In celebration of National Day, the National Palace Museum was officially inaugurated to preserve the imperial collections and palatial treasures from various Chinese dynasties, so that the public would be able to freely enter the Palace in order to admire their cultural inheritance (NPMT, 2008). The collection would remain in the City and intact, even through the takeover of Nationalist Party in 1928. The new director, Yi Pei-ji, appointed in 1929, further increased the collection's holdings until the invasion and occupation of northern China by the Japanese, which started in September 1931.

The fear of a fire from the aerial bombs, inflicted upon the region as part of the Japanese invasion, led the Chinese government to decide to evacuate the collection to Shanghai. The collection was readied, and in February 1933 the first trainload left the Forbidden City. In all, 14,000 crates of objects and paintings were evacuated. Schools, temples, and abandoned warehouses across the countryside were utilized to store the collection. The collection remained in constant motion throughout the Japanese occupation, seeing over 5,000 miles of travel (Stein, 1989).

The collection saw some respite between 1945 and 1948, when the Communist-Nationalist civil war erupted. In 1948 the Central Government and the Executive Directors of the Palace Museum decided to send the most precious objects in the Museum's collection to Taiwan for protection. A total of 2,972 crates were shipped in three groups and all arrived in Taiwan by February 1949. Select items from the collections of the National Central Library, Institute of History and Philology of Academia Sinica, and the National Central Museum also accompanied these shipments. By then, the Communists army had taken the National Palace Museum in Beijing and other branches spread throughout the country, so not all of the Museum's collection was shipped to the island. The National Palace Museum in Taiwan holds that "while the 2,072 crates of artifacts moved to Taiwan accounted for only a quarter of the items originally transported south from Peking (Beijing), the pieces presented the cream of the collection" (NPMT, 2008).

The move to Taiwan was thought to be only temporary, but now due to political relations between the two countries and in the spirit of Qianlong's quest for legitimacy, the Chinese and the Taiwanese governments continue to fight over ownership of the collection (Shambaugh, 2005). For a more detailed history of the collection's ownership, travels and other tribulations, please see Elliott and Shambaugh'sThe Odyssey of China's Imperial Art Treasures.

History of the Palace Museum Archive Collection

The Palace Museum Archives (PMA) is collection of high-quality photographic reproductions of the National Palace Museum, Taiwan's (NPMT) holdings. As with most art reproduction and distribution projects, this collection was intended to fill the gap in remote scholarly study of the holdings of NPMT. In addition, scholars were worried about the survivability of the collection, given the ongoing political upheaval in the region and the contemporary precarious position of Taiwan and the National Palace Museum. The intention of the project was to create a photographic record of "all the pieces worthy of serious attention in the whole (NPMT) collection" (Cahill, 2005).

The photography project was organized by the Freer Gallery of Art and the University of Michigan, and funded by three foundations, the Henry Luce Foundation, the John D. Rockefeller 3rd Fund, and the Bollingen Foundation. The project was directed by James Cahill, who at the time was the Curator of Chinese Art at the Freer Gallery of Art. Dr. Cahill earned his Master's and Ph.D. in Art History at the University of Michigan (Cahill, 2008). Dr. Richard (Dick) Edwards, faculty at the Department of the History of Art at the University of Michigan, acted on behalf of the University, attended the project in Taiwan, and was integral to making selection decisions.

According to Dr. Cahill, he oversaw the photography of the paintings over a period of about three months. Laurence Sickman (Director of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO) came after that to direct the photography of the calligraphy, ceramics, and other objects. Ray Schwartz of the Freer Gallery of Art acted as the project photographer. George Yeh, a minister in the Taiwan cabinet, was the principal advisor and liaison with the Museum authorities, including K'ung Te-ch'eng, Director of the Joint Administration of National Palace and Central Museums (Cahill, 2005).

The selection process intended to be utterly inclusive, although there is no record of what percentage of the whole was ultimately excluded. Selection of works was largely informed by the knowledge of the scholars involved, as well as the Ku-kung shu-hua lu (National Palace Museum Painting and Calligraphy Catalog), which was completed and published by the administration committee of the NPM in Taiwan in 1956. The catalog divided the collection into two main groups, the cheng-mu (main list) and the chien-mu (simple list). The basic distinction between the two lists is that the works included in the chien-mu are understood to be lesser or more unreliable in terms of authenticity. Priority of reproduction was given to thecheng-mu. Dr. Cahill did note that conscious decisions were made by the team to exclude several categories in thechien-mu, including the works of Orthodox-school lanscapists in the Ch'ing court (Cahill, 2005). However, it is understood from the nature of the photographing process that a detailed plan of selection was likely not created.

Many of the pieces included in this photographing project were also originally photographed and used in the catalog for the famous "Chinese Art Treasures" exhibition of 1961-62 at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Dr. Cahill and John Pope, the Freer Gallery of Art's director at the time, acted as the U.S. input into the selection of objects and for the writing of the English language catalog text for that exhibit. Items in the PMA collection that were included in the "Chinese Art Treasures" exhibit are noted in the master files.

Acquisition Information:
The collection was created through an inter-institutional project, but by agreement the collection is physically retained by the Visual Resources Collections, University of Michigan.
Arrangement:

The collection is arranged in the following series:

  • Series I: Negatives
    • Sub-series I: National Palace Museum [arranged by dynasty]
      • Sub-sub-series I: Paintings
        • Sub-sub-sub-series I: Handscrolls
        • Sub-sub-sub-series II: Hanging Scrolls
        • Sub-sub-sub-series III: Calligraphy
        • Sub-sub-sub-series IV: Portraits
      • Sub-sub-series II: Various Albums
      • Sub-sub-series III: Various Medias
    • Sub-series II: Chinese Art Treasures [arranged by dynasty]
      • Sub-sub-series I: Paintings
        • Sub-sub-sub-series I: Handscrolls
        • Sub-sub-sub-series II: Hanging Scrolls
        • Sub-sub-sub-series III: Calligraphy
        • Sub-sub-sub-series IV: Portraits
      • Sub-sub-series II: Various Albums
      • Sub-sub-series III: Various Medias
    • Sub-series III: Chien-Mu [arranged by dynasty]
      • Sub-sub-series I: Paintings
        • Sub-sub-sub-series I: Handscrolls
        • Sub-sub-sub-series II: Hanging Scrolls
      • Sub-sub-series II: Various Albums
  • Series II: Master Files
    • Sub-series I: National Palace Museum [arranged by dynasty]
      • Sub-sub-series I: Paintings
        • Sub-sub-sub-series I: Handscrolls
        • Sub-sub-sub-series II: Hanging Scrolls
        • Sub-sub-sub-series III: Calligraphy
        • Sub-sub-sub-series IV: Portraits
      • Sub-sub-series II: Various Albums
      • Sub-sub-series III: Various Medias
    • Sub-series II: Chinese Art Treasures [arranged by dynasty]
      • Sub-sub-series I: Paintings
        • Sub-sub-sub-series I: Handscrolls
        • Sub-sub-sub-series II: Hanging Scrolls
        • Sub-sub-sub-series III: Calligraphy
        • Sub-sub-sub-series IV: Portraits
      • Sub-sub-series II: Various Albums
      • Sub-sub-series III: Various Medias
    • Sub-series III: Chien-Mu [arranged by dynasty]
      • Sub-sub-series I: Paintings
        • Sub-sub-sub-series I: Handscrolls
        • Sub-sub-sub-series II: Hanging Scrolls
      • Sub-sub-series II: Various Albums

Contents

An inventory list is available upon request. For questions please contact the Visual Resources Collections at [email protected].

Using These Materials

Info for Visitors

Download PDF Finding Aid
RESTRICTIONS:

This collection is open for research by appointment only. Collection materials may not be reproduced without the permission of the Head of the Visual Resources Collections and according to department and collection policies.

USE & PERMISSIONS:

Copyright for reproduction is maintained by the National Palace Museum, Taiwan.

PREFERRED CITATION:

Palace Museum Archives Collection, Visual Resources Collections, Department of the History of Art, College of Literature, Science & the Arts, the University of Michigan

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Collection

Palace Museum Archives Collection, 1963-1964
Total components 0
Items available online Online 1
Last indexed 2025-02-09