Stitching up history
Beauty is probably the reason that has kept them sitting in front of exquisite centuriesold woven pieces and forgetting the flow of time.
Qu Tingting has worked in the textile conservation studio of the Palace Museum in Beijing since 2013. Qu, doing the needlework on ancient Chinese embroidery, silk pieces and other types of textiles, said she does not have even one moment of boredom.
“It’s not because you are interviewing me and it sounds better saying so,” Qu said, laughing in the studio. “Indeed, I feel fortunate to have found a job that I really enjoy and can be fully devoted to.”
She studied fashion design in college and said that in her current work, she “feels more comfortable as it is a quieter working atmosphere than that industry”.
“Being a doctor curing ancient textiles is an ideal choice.”
Qu’s work takes a lot of time, and in the past eight years she has fixed merely 50 relics or so.
“Sometimes it even takes a whole month to sew just a hole. I can even count how many stitches I make every day. Before every stitch I need solid concentration.”
No matter how sparkling these textiles were when they first came to the museum, they were dusty when they were later handed to conservators. Cleaning the dust has become a key part of their job. Using a specially designed miniature vacuum cleaner, an area up to the size of a hand can be cleaned in a day. These relics deserve the utmost caution because textiles are one of the most fragile cultural relics in the museum.
The Palace Museum, also known as the Forbidden City, was China’s imperial palace from 1420 to 1911. The royal families, especially the Manchu rulers of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), left myriad relics, which stand for advanced artisanship, in the compound.
More than 180,000 textile pieces are now housed at the Palace Museum, according to an inventory completed in 2015, making it among the biggest collections of such cultural relics in the world. Royal garments and Peking Opera costumes are the signature relics in this category, but textiles were almost ubiquitous in the former imperial palace and used to make windows, paintings, folding fans, cushions, pillows, bedsheets, valances, and other interior decorations. The artisans were generous in demonstrating their creativity by weaving auspicious patterns in corners of the imperial palace.
Consequently, following the renovation of the palatial architecture, more textile relics were sent to the conservation studio.
A modern technical approach is helping the conservators work in a way that could probably have been barely imagined by ancient artisans, such as analysis of specific material. In the old days, people could only refer to their eyes, fingers and experience.
“A basic principle in our work is not to touch the textile until it is necessary,” Chen Yang, a leading conservator in the studio, said. “But even with the help of analytical machines, we cannot be absolutely sure we chose the right material or drafted the perfect conservation plan. Perhaps someone in the future will fix our errors.”
So, all the fixing on the textiles are reversible, Chen said. Newly added materials will not be directly sewn with the original fibers. They will be made into liners that can be removed later if necessary.
“Conservation is not about bringing the perfect appearance to a textile like tailors,” Wang Xu, another conservator, said. “Our duty is to consolidate these relics and make them survive as long as possible.”