Making the Palace Machine Work: Mobilizing People, Objects, and Nature in the Qing Empire
Making the Palace Machine Work: Mobilizing People, Objects, and Nature in the Qing Empire
edited by Martina Siebert, Kai Jun Chen and Dorothy Ko
Amsterdam University Press, 2021 eISBN: 978-90-485-5322-8
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK
This volume brings the studies of institutions, labour, and material cultures to bear on the history of science and technology by tracing the workings of the Imperial Household Department (Neiwufu) in the Qing court and empire. An enormous apparatus that employed 22,000 men and women at its heyday, the Department operated a "machine" with myriad moving parts. The first part of the book portrays the people who kept it running, from technical experts to menial servants, and scrutinises the paper trails they left behind. Part two uncovers the working principles of the machine by following the production chains of some of its most splendid products: gilded statues, jade, porcelain, and textiles. Part three tackles the most complex task of all, managing living organisms in nature, including lotus plants grown in imperial ponds in Beijing, fresh medicines sourced from disparate regions, and tribute elephants from Southeast Asia.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Martina Siebert works as area specialist for China at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin and as independent scholar. She researches and publishes on Chinese exploration into nature and history of technology with a focus on the styles and agendas of presenting and organizing that knowledge in writing.
Kaijun Chen is Assistant Professor at Brown University. He is specialized in the history of imperial institution, handicraft technology, and material culture studies. His monograph in progress examines the technocratic culture in the Imperial Ceramic Industry of the Qing dynasty. His other scholarly publications investigate the production of technological knowledge in the global circulation, collection, and replication of luxury artifacts, especially porcelains.
A native of Hong Kong, Dorothy Ko is Professor of History at Barnard College, Columbia University. She is a cultural historian of early modern China whose research focuses on gender, technology, and material culture. Her recent book, The Social Life of Inkstones: Artisans and Scholars in Early Qing China (Washington, 2017) is a finalist of the Morey Prize of the College Art Association. An earlier book, Cinderella's Sisters: A Revisionist History of Footbinding (California, 2005) won the Joan Kelly Memorial Prize of the American Historical Association.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Map of Imperial and Forbidden City
Map of Beijing and outskirts
Map of Qing China (1820)
Acknowledgments
Conventions for the Notation of Time, Weights, and Measures
Note on Translation
List of Figures, Tables, Charts, and Maps
Introduction
Part I. Operating the Machine: Personnel and Paper Trails
Vignette essay. Moving Pieces: On the Reuse of Interior Decoration Objects in Qing Palaces (Shuxian Zhang)
1. Working the Qing Palace Machine: The Servants' Perspective (Christine Moll-Murata)
2. Manager or Craftsman: Skillful Bannermen of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) (Kai Jun Chen)
3. Kupiao and the Accounting System of the Imperial Household Workshops (Yijun Wang and Kyoungjin Bae)
Part II. Producing the Court: Materials and Artefacts
Vignette essay. The Story of An Image: Ding Guanpeng's 'Ultimate Bliss' and the Auspiciousness of Reproduction (Qiong Zhang)
4. Piecing Shards Together: The Uses and Manufacturing of Imperially Porcelain (Guangyao Wang)
5. Resplendent Innovations: Fire Gilding Techniques at the Qing Court (Hui-min Lai and Te-cheng Su)
6. Transporting Jade: Objects, Ecology and Local Bureaucracy in Qing Xinjiang (Yulian Wu)
Part III. Mobilizing Nature: Plants and Animals
Vignette essay. Decluttering: On the Classification of Objects at the Imperial Household Department (Elif Akçetin)
7. Growing and Organizing Lotus in Qing Imperial Spaces: Interlocking Cycles of Money and Nature (Martina Siebert)
8. The Medicine Supply System of the Qing Court (Xueling Guan)
9. When There Is Peace, There Are Elephants (Hui-chun Yu)
Coda
Bibliography
Index