1. Illustration of Victory: Archives of the Grand Council
(Matching tags: National Palace Museum,documents,print)

The Grand Council of State was created from the Military Supply Office, an agency established in the Yung-cheng period (1723-1735) by the Board of Revenue and Population for the mobilization of troops ...

2. Joyous New Year
(Matching tags: print,blessing)

This auspicious painting is used on doors. It displays a beautiful lady with a plump child in her arms. Her left hand holds a pomegranate representing fertility while the child carries a vase of flowers ...

3. Everything Will Happen Just as You Wish (Shi Shi Ru Yi)
(Matching tags: print,blessing)

The painting exhibits three children. The tallest one stands in the middle grasping a ruyi (traditional decorative ornament that symbolizes good fortune), from which hangs a pair of persimmons (homonymous ...

4. Best Wishes to Your Family (He Jia Huan Le)
(Matching tags: print,blessing)

This is a piece of decorative painting used on doors. The background of the painting is based on the patterns of xi (double happiness) and zi sun wan dai (endless generations of offspring). There are three ...

5. The Official of Heaven Bestows Blessings
(Matching tags: print,blessing)

Legend has it that the Official of Heaven bestows blessings; the Official of Earth absolves crimes; and the Official of Water removes misfortunes. The three Officials of Heaven, Earth, and Water together ...

6. The Five Blessings at the Door (Wu Fu Lin Men)
(Matching tags: print,blessing)

This set of decorative paintings is made up of two halves. The background of this painting is interspersed with the patterns of xi (double happiness) and zi sun wan dai (endless generations of offspring). ...

7. The Three Stars Are Seen from the Door
(Matching tags: print,blessing)

The painting show five figures: the Three Stars: Fu, Lu, Shou (luck, prosperity, and longevity) and two attendant children. The middle one, who holds a ruyi (traditional ornament signifying good fortune) ...

8. One Family, Five Blessings
(Matching tags: print,blessing)

The upper portion of the painting bears the words: yi men wu fu (one family, five blessings). The green backdrop encompasses patterns of bats, cranes, and gourds, which represent “manifold blessings,” ...

9. The Qilin Brings a Child
(Matching tags: print,blessing)

This set of decorative paintings for doors is made up of two halves. The right half presents the Chinese phrase, tao xian qian nian (peaches confer a thousand years of longevity), and the left half presents ...

10. The Qilin Brings a Child
(Matching tags: print,blessing)

This set of decorative paintings for doors is made up of two halves. Its green background is ornamented with gourds, a metaphor meaning endless generations of offspring. Each painting displays three children. ...

11. The Auspicious Dragon and Phoenix (Long feng cheng xiang)
(Matching tags: print,blessing)

This set of decorative paintings is made up of two halves. The right half displays a child on a dragon, with a prince’s crown on his head, while the one on the left displays a child sitting astride ...

12. The God of Happiness
(Matching tags: god,print)

This set of decorative paintings for doors is made up of two halves, each exhibiting a noble official dressed in a traditional official hat and ceremonial clothes. One hand of the officials holds an ivory ...

13. A Succession of Sons
(Matching tags: print,blessing)

This is a single piece of decorative painting used on doors. The painting displays five children: one child squats on top of the lotus pot, unrolling with both hands a scroll that reads “May you ...

14. Fortune-increasing Gods of Wealth
(Matching tags: god,print)

The painting juxtaposes the two seated gods of wealth: the red-faced Zhao Gongming, the martial god of wealth, who carries a gold ingot, while the white-faced is Bi Gan, the civil god of wealth (believed ...

15. The Treasure Basin and Money Tree (Yao Qian Shu)
(Matching tags: print,blessing)

This is a single piece of decorative painting used on a door. Depicted in the painting is a money tree planted in a treasure pot. Sitting on the tree is a boy and standing on the two sides of the treasure ...

16. Blessings Descend upon a Land of Benevolence; Wealth Arrives at the House of Virtue
(Matching tags: print,blessing)

Framed with auspicious patterns, this double-sided decorative painting presents in the middle of each side a noble child sitting astride a deer, with an attendant child following him. The noble child on ...

17. High Position and Great Wealth
(Matching tags: print,blessing)

This set of decorative paintings for doors is made up of two halves. The noble officials in the paintings both wear traditional official hats and hold ivory tablets in their hands. The one on the right ...

18. Lu Shen, The God of Roads
(Matching tags: god,print,Lu Shen)

The painting is fashioned by two combined bottom-plates. The framing shrine was printed first, leaving the middle blank. The inner pattern of the “God of the Five Unobstructed Roads” was later ...

19. The God of Wealth of the Five Directions
(Matching tags: god,print)

This is a single piece of decorative painting. On its light-green background are patterns of “errant clouds”. In the middle stands a God of Wealth dressed in a ceremonial civil-official costume, ...

20. The Door Gods
(Matching tags: god,print,Door Gods)

Both the door gods wear body armors; one holds a sword in each hand and the other is with whips. The god on the right-hand side is Qin Shubao, on the left is Yuchi Jingde. The legend has it that when Emperor ...