Family’s Dedication to the Palace Museum

Ma Li　Zhang Yifan　Yang Linxi

Fifteen years after his father Zhu Jiajin （1914-2003） passed away， his daughter Zhu Chuanrong put together a book about him. The ， which she says is a collection of writings and interviews and memoires， was published by Zhonghua Book Company， one of Chinas biggest publishers specialized in editing and printing ancient books.

The book reveals a great deal about Zhu Jiajin， including his ancestry， his lifetime work， and his relatives.

Zhu Jiajin was a famed specialist of the Palace Museum. He began to work for the Palace Museum shortly after World War Two was over. His daughter used to be his colleague at the museum. And Zhu Wenjun （1882-1937）， the father of Zhu Jiajin and the grandfather of Zhu Chuanrong， was engaged as a calligraphy authenticator by the Palace Museum shortly after it was established and tasked to look after the imperial collection of ancient arts at the imperial palace. Zhu Wenjun， a graduate of Oxford University， worked for the national government in the Qing Dynasty and， after the last dynasty was replaced by the Republic of China， continued to work as a counselor for the Finance Department of the national government and later as director of salt administration before he was fully engaged with the museum.

The ancestral roots of the family in Beijing are in Zhujiatan， Xiaoshan， now a district of Hangzhou， capital city of eastern Chinas coastal Zhejiang Province. The familys lineage book records that their primary ancestor is Zhu Xi （1130-1200）， one of the greatest of Confucian scholars in China. In the chaotic years toward the tail part of the Yuan Dynasty （1279-1368）， Zhu Shou， the 7th-generation descendent of Zhu Xi， fled to Xiaoshan and settled down. The village was originally called Jinjiatan. As the Zhu family became prosperous， the village changed its name to Zhujiatan.

Zhu Jiajin and his family

Zhu Jiajin keeps practicing calligraphy even in his last years.

The Zhu familys dedication to the Palace Museum was officially recognized again in 2014. The museum held an exhibition to present the calligraphy works and calligraphy rubbings collected and donated by the Zhu Family. In the same year， the museum published a catalogue of the collection of the Zhu Family. The title of the catalogue book honors the Zhu family from Xiaoshan.

Zhu Fengbiao in Xiaoshan passed the primary-level imperial examination in 1828 and passed the highest imperial examination in 1832. He moved to Beijing. In his glorious career， he respectively headed five ministries for the national government. That was the very ancestor which started this branch in Beijing of the Zhu family in Xiaoshan， Zhejiang Province.

Zhu Jiajin contributed remarkably to the Palace Museum. Nowadays， the cultural heritage collection of the Palace Museum is classified into 25 major categories. Zhu Jiajin was the first scholar who looked into over ten of the categories. It can be said that the scholars of today specialized in the research of these cultural heritage items all benefit， directly or indirectly， from the work of Zhu.

Some people thought Zhu Jiajin was a specialist of the history of the Qing Dynasty. Zhu disagreed. In an exclusive interview with Beijing TV， he said he was by no means a specialist. He knew both the history of the Qing and the Ming dynasties， but he did not write academic papers and books. Instead， he said he was a qualified museum worker with an encyclopedic knowledge essential to handle the width and the unpredictability of the work he encountered and handled.

In 1952， Zhu Jiajin and his three brothers， under the direction of their mother， donated the whole calligraphy collection put together by their father Zhu Wenjun to the nation. The collection is housed at the Palace Museum. Zhu Chuanrong talked about this donation many decades later in a CCTV television program that the family always considered themselves not as owners but keepers of cultural treasures.

Wang Shixiang （1914-2009）， a prominent scholar on cultural relics， commented that， of the families that donated to the Palace Museum in the modern times， the Zhus donated among the best in value and the largest in number.

Zhujiatan Village still stands in Xiaoshan. It takes 35 minutes by metro and another 20 minutes by car to reach the village from downtown Hangzhou. The village has a meandering river and many stone-arch bridges. The former house of Zhu Fengbiao is still there.

Zhu Jiajin visited the village in the spring of 1994 when the tomb of Zhu Fengbiao was being restored by Zhejiang Museum and Xiaoshan Administration of Cultural Relics. He visited the village annually from 1994 on.

He attended the opening ceremony of Zhejiang Museum on September 20， 1994. In the spring of 1996， he spent half a month authenticating the artworks for Xiaoshan Museum.

Though the dialect has been somewhat kept alive in the family in Beijing， Zhu Jiajin could hardly speak it， though he could pick up some separate words now and then when he heard someone speak it. During his home visits， he often asked people with him to confirm if he heard some words wrong or right. His last home visit was in the summer of 2002. His daughter Zhu Chuanrong accompanied him. It was the year when the excavating project of the underground cellar at the site of Thunder Peak Pagoda was launched. The family knew he was sick and it was his last visit to home province.