What the Emperor Built

Anonymous, Portrait of the Yongle Emperor (early fifteenth century). Ink and color on silk, 220 × 150 cm. National Palace Museum, Taipei. Wikimedia Commons.

Zhu Bang (attributed), portrait of the master carpenter Kuai Xiang in front of the Beijing imperial palace (1480–1580). Hanging scroll, ink and color on silk, 170 × 110.8 cm. British Museum, London.

“Layered Shades of Green at Juyong Pass,” from Wang Fu, Eight Views of the Northern Capital (1414). Handscroll, ink on paper, 42.1 × 2006.5 cm (entire scroll). National Museum of China. Lin, “Gifts of Good Fortune and Praise-Songs for Peace,” 130–31.

Bracketing in the upper and lower eaves at the Sacrificial Hall at Yongle’s tomb. Author’s photograph, 2014.

Rear tails (liujin) of exterior brackets on the interior of the Sacrificial Hall at Yongle’s tomb. Author’s photograph, 2014.

Interior of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, Forbidden City, Beijing. Reproduced with the permission of the Commercial Press (Hong Kong) Limited from the publication of Yu Zhuoyun, Palaces of the Forbidden City, 65.

The Golden Hall (1418). Photograph courtesy of Zhang Jianwei.

Main hall of Purple Skies Temple (1413). Author’s photograph, 2012.

Section of Purple Skies Temple. Hubei sheng jianshe ting, Wudangshan gujianzhu qun, 95.

Detail from Auspicious Images on Mount Taihe (fifteenth century), showing circular rainbow light above one of the temples on Mount Wudang. Handscroll, ink and color on silk, 56 × 85 cm. White Cloud Temple (Baiyun Guan), Beijing. Little and Eichman, Taoism and the Arts of China, 304.

Statue of the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī bearing the inscription “Bestowed in the Reign of Yongle of the Great Ming Dynasty” in Chinese on the lotus base. Gilt brass, lost-wax casting, 19.1 cm × 12.1. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Detail of Song emperor Huizong’s Auspicious Cranes. Handscroll, ink and color on silk, 1112.51 × 138.2 cm. Liaoning Provincial Museum. Wikimedia Commons.