The Riddle of Prince Gong’s Mansion Restoration

By staff reporter YI LI

Prince Gong’s Mansion on Qianhai West Street, Xicheng District near Shichahai Lake constitutes an archetype of the 60 prince’s mansions built in Beijing during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), according to Luo Zhewen, a research fellow and leader of the specialists group of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage. The state has allocated RMB 400 million to rebuilding Prince Gong’s Mansion into a national museum, RMB 183 million of which is earmarked for renovation and restoration. The museum will incorporate a research center to study systematically the history and culture of prince’s mansions. Work started on December 5, 2005 and is expected to finish in 2007. The mansion’s interior is to be adapted for the display of decorative and utility objects, and the mansion living quarters and private garden will be opened to domestic and international visitors.

The ultimate aim of the project is to imbue the museum with the ambience of the daily life of these imperial relatives throughout the Qing, China’s last dynasty, but fulfilling this aim is an enormous challenge, as there is little to go on as regards extant images or descriptions of the mansion’s original exterior and interior aspects.

Wages of Sin

Prince Gong’s Mansion was built by the infamously corrupt, Prime Minister He Shen. Emperor Qianlong was so charmed by the handsome and witty He Shen when they first met in 1776 that he bestowed upon him imperial favor, and eventually the office of prime minister. It was through this high position that He Shen garnered the wealth, through various shady dealings, that enabled him to build this now historical residence. Emperor Qianlong died in 1799 and was succeeded by his son, Emperor Jiaqing, who wasted no time in denouncing Prime Minister He Shen as perpetrator of 20 crimes. The wily culprit was commanded to commit suicide by hanging, and his properties, equivalent to ten years’ government revenue, were duly confiscated.

Emperor Jiaqing awarded He Shen’s residence to Commandery Prince Yonglin, but allowed Princess Hexiao, Emperor Qianlong’s daughter and wife of He Shen’s son, to continue living in her own half of the mansion. It was in 1851 that Prince Gong, named, Yixin, became the third owner of the residence, and it has borne his name ever since. In 1860, when the Anglo-French Allied Forces captured Beijing, Prince Gong held talks with their representatives in the Duofuxuan Hall of his mansion and it was there that the signing of the Beijing Treaties took place. In view of its historical value, UNESCO allocated US $50,000 to repairing this hall. The mansion, as Hou Renzhi, professor at Beijing University, points out, “ … represents half of the history of the Qing Dynasty,” but the dearth of historical records indicating its original appearance makes renovations intended to honor the mansion’s original design a difficult and onerous task.

Just Two Sets of Drawings

Following the mansion’s occupancy by Prince Gong, its ownership changed hands several times, during the course of which it sustained serious damage.

In 1912, Yixin’s sons, Puwei and Puru, took out a mortgage on the mansion with the Catholic Church in order to raise funds to reinstate the Qing Dynasty; in March 1937 the Fu Jen Catholic University bought and used it as its campus. The mansion survived the war years, but underwent large-scale renovations that considerably altered its original structure.

After establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the mansion accommodated various social organizations and their employees. By the time they all moved out 30 years later, the mansion’s original symmetry was barely discernible.

The Architectural Design and Research Institute of Tsinghua University (THAD) has been commissioned with the architectural design of the restoration project, but its work is seriously impeded by the absence of written descriptions of the mansion or blueprints of its construction, according to THAD architect Chen Tong.

THAD has found two sets of drawings. One appears to show the layout of the mansion, but whether it was for design or survey purposes is uncertain. If the former should be the case, it could be one of many sets that were not actually put to use. The other set forms part of a survey carried out in 1937 by architects of the Society for the Study of Chinese Architecture, the last of whom died during the 1990s. The survey drawings comprised 16 sketches depicting key sections of the mansion, including five of its interior, but, in the absence of explanatory notes, their approximations are difficult for contemporary architects to follow.

Kong Xiangxing, former deputy curator of the China National Museum of History, has been responsible for seeking historical records relating to Prince Gong’s Mansion. His efforts have taken him as far as Germany, where he tracked down the 1940 editions of the Monumenta Serica magazine carrying an article entitled “Prince Gong’s Mansion of Beijing and Its Garden” at the Monumenta Serica Institute. This 40,000-word article and its accompanying dozen or so photographs are the fruits of research on Prince Gong carried out by two specialists. It includes detailed accounts of a tour of the Prince Gong residence and private garden. It was hence of considerable help in the ongoing restoration plans.

Elusive Cultural Relics

In 1912, Puwei raised a mortgage on properties included in Prince Gong’s Mansion with the Japanese Yamanaka Trading Co., Ltd. In the three days from February 27 to March 1, 1913, Yamanaka shipped 563 cultural relics to the United States for auction, and the same year auctioned off 221 items in London. It also put relics up for sale in its own stores.

In 2005 in Japan, the fourth-generation boss of the Yamanaka Trading Company showed to staff members of the Administrative Center of Prince Gong’s Mansion his collection of old photographs. It included one of his great grandfather Yamanaka Dinjiro with housekeeper of Prince Gong’s Mansion in front of the First Palace Gate, and another of the mansion’s Asi Gate. But of greater significance still was the illustrated catalogue, in Mr. Yamanaka’s possession, listing items, originally part of Prince Gong’s Mansion household that were sold at a New York auction, along with their transaction prices and buyers. This find enabled the center to pinpoint the whereabouts of many Prince Gong’s Mansion relics. Regaining them, however, is another matter.

As it now transpires, many Prince Gong’s Mansion relics are part of various museum collections in and outside of China, and as such difficult to recover. Paintings and calligraphic works originally part of Prince Gong’s Mansion décor are currently on exhibit in American and European museums, and will take time to recover; restoration of the mansion’s sandalwood furniture now part of the Taipei Palace Museum collection is nigh on impossible. .

The Administrative Center of Prince Gong’s Mansion began recovery of lost cultural relics in 2004. It has since regained more than 400 pieces, including texts on and photos of Prince Gong ‘s Mansion and other prince’s mansions, according to Lu Ping, director of the center’s cultural relics management department. Other recovered items are paintings and calligraphic works by Qing royal members and their descendants, luxury Ming and Qing furniture and ceramic vessels, various sacrificial articles and items of stationery.

When soliciting Prince Gong’s Mansion relics was announced on the media, the center received dozens of calls as to the whereabouts of further items, among them a set of mahogany furniture inlaid with mother-of-pearl found in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, which the administrative center bought back for RMB 2 million.

The media has thus also been of inestimable help to the center and THAD in their joint mission to restore Prince Gong’s Mansion -- this remarkable facet of China’s imperial past. Those involved in the project now feel more confident that restoration work can be accomplished and that Prince Gong’s Mansion will open to the public, as scheduled, in 2007.