Relocating Qing Dynasty sedan chair a challenge for museum staff
The Zhejiang Museum has officially shut down the Wulin Pavilion in the West Lake Cultural Square and is moving collections to the Zhijiang Pavilion along the Qaintang River, which will open later this month.
Moving the national treasure, wangongjiao (万工轿), was the hardest thing for the museum. After centuries of maintenance, the wooden sedan chair that is made up of hundreds of components and ornaments is too fragile to be moved as a whole unit.
In efforts to protect the treasure as much as possible, the museum dismantled it piece by piece. Every component was scanned by a 3D scanning machine and then wrapped in layers of plastic foam before being transported.
"We don't have the original construction blueprint of the sedan chair," said Fan Peiling, who is responsible for the relocation. "Therefore, we must record each and every part of it accurately so that we can rebuild it properly later. Otherwise, it may break down."
The sedan chair is considered one of the most significant items of China's historical, artistic and ornamental artifacts from the traditional wedding culture of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).
A staff member of the museum carefully handles a part of the sedan chair while the process is being recorded to ensure that it can be rebuilt accurately later.
In the ancient Ningbo area, when a family's daughter was about to marry, it was customary for the family to provide a dowry. The bigger and better the dowry, the higher the status their daughter would have in the new family. Rich families would spend a large sum of money, also making or renting an impressive sedan chair to ensure their daughter's future happiness.
The Ningbo bridal sedan chair was made in the late Qing Dynasty employing the traditional mortise and tenon technique for joining 400 pieces of wood at an angle of 90 degrees without a single nail.
Measuring 1.5 meters in length, 2.75 meters in height and 0.9 meters in width, and weighing over 200 kilograms, it would have taken a craftsman over 10,000 hours to complete. People named it wangongjiao, which literally means a bridal sedan that took 10,000 hours to make.
Every component of the sedan chair must be scanned by a 3D machine and wrapped in foam before transportation.
It is engraved with auspicious floral patterns, legendary stories and mythical creatures, embedded with ornate paintings on glass, and carved with around 250 figures. The figures are movable. When bearers were carrying the chair, all of the figurines moved in sync with the bearers.
The whole surface is painted with glittering golden and red lacquer, with tassels hanging from the top. The lacquering skill was called zhujin mudiao (朱金木雕), which refers to painting golden and red lacquer on wooden sculptures.
To carve intricate designs onto a lacquer sculpture, the wood must be coated with approximately 100 layers of lacquer, then dried, smoothed, and polished to make it sufficiently thick. Once completed, the sculpture must then be coated once again to seal the carvings. Depending on its complexity, a single piece can take several years to finish.
Part of the bridal sedan was ornamented with real gold instead of golden lacquer, which makes it even more luxurious.
The classic sedan chair, known as wangongjiao and requiring eight bearers to lift it, will be relocated to the Zhijiang Pavilion, which is set to open later this month.
This is a classic "八抬大轿" – which literally means "a sedan chair that needs eight bearers to lift it." In ancient times, only wealthy families could afford such a stylish sedan chair because its rent equaled the price of 2.5 tons of rice.
According to archives, this sedan chair belonged to a wedding vendor who hired craftspeople to produce it. The top-notch bridal chair lured wealthy families who wanted to marry their daughters with pomp and ceremony. Usually, they had to book the sedan chair one year ahead.
On the wedding day, the bride would sit in the sedan chair and be carried to the bridegroom's family house, followed by porters carrying her dowry.
It is said that the longest procession might stretch for 10 li – 5 kilometers – when it was for the daughter of a rich family. Therefore, this tradition came to be known as "10 li of red dowry."
