China Red Sandalwood Museum
As an ancient Chinese proverb goes as “an inch of sandalwood is equal to an inch of gold”, the red sandalwood (紫檀木) is more usually purplish-red, sometimes with grayish-black hues – colors and shades that represented the prestige and solemnity of imperial rule centuries ago. It gives off a pleasing musty aroma. The average red sandalwood tree takes 300 years to reach full growth, and only some 10 percent of its content can be put to practical use. Hence the wood’s rarity and why it is now a popular collectable. A piece of ancient sandalwood furniture fetched US$11.29 million at a 1996 Sotheby’s auction.
The wood was abundant in South-east Asia, including China, in pre-Christian times and first became popular during the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476BC). Its next resurgence was when it was widely sought and used by the imperial family of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). So high was the family’s demand that it took only a few years for red sandalwood trees to disappear from China.
By the way, this wood is steel-like heavy, and if you put it into the water, it will sink.
Its scarcity saw it take on the mantle of “precious” in the mid-Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), when all ranks of officials collected it in tribute to the imperial city. The main parts of the Forbidden City and its furniture are made of sandalwood.
The China Red Sandalwood Museum is the first and largest private museum in China specialized in collecting, researching and displaying red sandalwood works of art and connoisseurship of classical furniture.
There are items without parallel anywhere in the world — full-size furniture, scale reproductions of temple corner-towers and siheyuan (courtyards), magnificent gilded screens and thrones, cabinets, Buddha niches, mirrors, artifacts by the dozen and even superb unused samples of red sandalwood and other woods such as ebony, poplar, boxwood, mahogany and the extraordinary Dalbergia oderifera (ghost eyes) that also feature in the exhibition’s finished pieces. Amazingly, there are no nails or screws whatever in the elaborate 1/25-scale four-corner watchtower from the Forbidden City.
Among them, the most beautiful exhibit is a stunning set of 12 red sandalwood screens entitled Riverside Scene During the Qingming Festival, carvings that replicate a famous painting with the same title by Zhang Zedyab during the Song Dynasty (960-1127). The huge screens, five times the size of Zhang’s original, collectively weigh almost 5,400kg. It took 500 artisans eight months to complete the work.
All the museum’s exhibits are constructed at its workshop in Dahuangzhuang Road, Chaoyang District. Craftsmen first select best-quality sandalwood which, after careful drying, is carved, engraved and polished. A sandalwood screen with a dragon motif can take 100 craftsmen three years to finish.
The China Red Sandalwood Museum covers 9,569 square meters, and comprises a central hall; huge, three floors of airy exhibition halls; a sales department and ancillary rooms.
Something about the owner, Chan, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, is one of China’s most remarkable and successful businesswomen. Born of a noble family of Manchu nationality, she was greatly influenced by the traditions of Chinese culture during her childhood. She was particularly fond of two sandalwood cabinets owned by her family. During the cultural revolution, her family hid them in the Summer Palace for protection.
Further Information:
You can take photos only at the designated exhibits.
website: www.redsandalwood.com
