Sandalwood Museum Showcases the past

The thousands of motor ists who daily zip along the Gaobeidian stretch of Beijing's Jin Tong Expressway can be forgiven for assuming that the elaborately tiled-and-turreted building close by the China Resources Hotel is a beautifully preserved ancient temple.

It isn't. Or rather it is ... but a temple to the world's largest and most valuable collection of Chinese red sandalwood, a timber now so rare that, like certain gemstones, it rates as "precious". Indeed, an ancient Chinese proverb has it that "an inch of sandalwood is equal to an inch of gold".

In today's arts markets, even this sounds ridiculously cheap in the context of the 1,000 or so permanent exhibits at the privately owned Chinese Red Sandalwood Museum at Gaobeidian, Chaoyang District. These 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.

It took 300 craftsmen almost five years to carve and fit into position thousands of individually carved pieces, all of which slotted together like some giant example of ancient oriental Lego. Equally awe-inspiring, and put together in the same fashion, is a siheyuan so perfect in detail that it makes the British royal family's famous Queen's Doll's House at Windsor Castle seem almost like a plaything from a toyshop.

Countless lavish tributes to the US$200-million museum by local and overseas experts are best exemplified by Zhu Jiajin, researcher at the Palace Museum, which is more widely known as the Forbidden City. When the red sandalwood museum opened in September, 1999, as one of 67 construction projects celebrating China's 50th National Day, he said: "From the theme to the selection of materials, from the design to the carving, these pieces can be considered as masterpieces."

Arguably 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.

While called red sandalwood, the wood 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.

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.

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.

China Red Sandalwood Museum
9 Xing Long West Street
Chaoyang District.
Tel: 8575-2818; Fax: 8575-2812
E-mail: zitangong@redsandalwood.com
website: www.redsandalwood.com

The driving force behind the creation and building of the China Red Sandalwood Museum is curator Chan Lai-wa, who is also chairman of the famous Fu Wah (Beijing) Furniture Enterprise Co.Ltd., whose factory's hand-picked craftsmen replicated all the museum's exhibits.

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.

Although she made her fortune in Hong Kong property, Chan's sentiments were always firmly "back home", and she returned to China in 1983. Since then she has devoted enormous effort to researching and manufacturing sandalwood furniture in the Ming and Qing styles at the Fu Wah factory, where she personally supervises all major work. Establishing a red sandalwood museum was a long-cherished ambition.
Chan, who regards red sandalwood furniture as her "sweetheart", says the wood is as precious as jade. She reputedly turned down an American millionaire's offer of US$100 million for furniture exhibited at the museum.