Artisans worked at the Imperial Workshop – the country’s top workshops that produced all sorts of wares for the imperial family. Operating under the Imperial Household Department, the Imperial Workshop was originally located in single-storeyed buildings in the vicinity of the Hall of Mental Cultivation. It was moved to a commissary building at the Palace of Compassion and Tranquillity in 1691 during the reign of Kangxi. Although A new workshop was established at the Summer Palace during the Yongzheng period, the Imperial Workshop kept the title “Workshop of the Hall of Mental Cultivation”.

At its peak, over 1,000 skilled artisans worked at the Imperial Workshop, specialising in 61 different disciplines. They came from all corners of China and were generally subdivided into Northern artisans and Southern artisans. The Northern artisans, “Northern” namely “Peking”, were mainly hailed from North China and Xinjiang, including bannermen and Han Chinese; the Southern artisans were chosen from Jiangnan area, Fujian, Guangdong etc., even Western Europe artisans and painters. Tireless in their pursuit of artistic excellence, and with a strong dedication to the perfection of their craftsmanship, these artisans produced objects that met the high standards of the imperial family and became important treasures of the Forbidden City.

Except the clock repairers, most of the artisans at the Imperial Workshop moved out of the palace and entered the private sector during the early years of the Republic of China. By the 1950s, a number of crafters who had inherited the craftsmanship of the imperial artisans were already carrying out restoration work at the Forbidden City. Faced with the immense collection of artefacts, the Palace Museum established the Department of Conservation Science in the 1980s by merging its restoration workshop with its laboratory. The department also recruited the successors of the imperial artisans – including carpenters, lacquerers, ivory carvers, bronze workers, and palace lantern makers – to restore the Forbidden City’s cultural relics and pass on the traditional craftsmanship of the Imperial Workshop.