苑洪琪：誰也不知道當時到底是怎么繡的

YUAN HONG-QI NOBODY KNOWS HOW THOSE EMBROIDERIES WERE DONE

The seat from which the emperor can see perfomances皇帝觀戲寶座

Yuan HongqiCourt History specialist of the Palace Museum苑洪琪故宮博物院宮廷史專家

Nihao: What's the characteristics of those furniture in Juan Qin Zhai?

Y: The furniture ref l ects the habit of people living in Northeast China. The Qianlong Emperor didn't like to sit on chairs, and therefore there were a lot of beds inside Juan Qin Zhai. Qianlong was particular about mats on those beds. On those mats, many of which are worn out nowadays, were Suzhou embroideries. We have tried to recognize the patterns embroidered with the help of archives and compare them with other Suzhou embroideries in that period.

Nihao: What difficulties did you meet during the repair?

Y: Inside the Juan Qin Zhai, “ge shan (screens)”were used to separate the space. The light was expected to go through these ge shan and thus they themselves and the embroideries on them must be very thin. The technique used to do this kind of embroideries has been lost, and we can only go to Suzhou to find experienced craftsmen. Later we found Chen Ying-hua, who has work on embroideries for 20 years, to seek his advice for the reproduction of the specific kind of Suzhou embroideries. With the guidance of master Gu Wen-xia and repeated trials, we finally succeeded.

Nihao: 倦勤齋的陳設有哪些特點？

苑：倦勤齋里的陳設比較接近東北的習慣。乾隆不習慣坐椅子、凳子，所以倦勤齋里面的床特別多。乾隆對于床上所鋪的墊子很講究。墊子上用的是蘇繡，但是花紋都已經破損了，我們需要去從檔案中查閱，上面的蘇繡登記是什么花紋，然后再去查找同一時期哪些蘇繡也繡了這些圖案，再以此作為參考。

Nihao: 在修復當中有遇到哪些困難呢？

苑：倦勤齋中使用隔扇將房間間隔開，因為要借自然光，所以隔扇使用的是很薄的雙面繡。這個工藝已經失傳了，我們只能到繡品當時的產地蘇州去找繡娘，最后找到了有20年刺繡經驗的陳英華老師。因為誰也不知道怎么繡，陳英華只能慢慢摸索，然后給我們提意見，邀請顧文霞大師進行技術指導，經過很多次反復才慢慢恢復成功。