[VOL II]PAVILION AND GARDENS OF A MANDARIN, NEAR PEKING

PAVILION AND GARDENS OF A MANDARIN, NEAR PEKING

Cover Image: Pavilion and Gardens of a Mandarin, near Peking / BeiJing China / Drawn by T. Allom Engraved by A.Willmore – ALAMY Image ID:2X4BD2T

*A government official’s luxurious mansion in the suburbs of Beijing.

“In marble-paved pavilion, where a spring
Of living water from the centre rose,
Whose bubbling did a genial freshness fling,
And soft voluptuous couches breathed repose,
They sat.”

BYRON.

THE original of this beautiful specimen of gracefulness and fancy in domestic architecture, is the residence of one of the family of Elepoo, a relative of the Imperial race.

It is a concentration of all the imaginative efforts of Chinese artists. The foreground represents a spacious veranda in that section of the villa appropriated to the ladies of the family, looking over a spacious piece of water, introduced amidst the buildings, not only for its beauty, but its refreshing character. Around are esplanades enclosed by structures raised on wooden pillars, and faced with lattice-work. The double-roof, an ornament dictated by the imperfect principles of national art, is very happily illustrated in the pavilion of ceremony, or reception, on the right; and the distance is filled up with a handsome, spacious, yet ill-constructed bridge, above which a lofty pagoda towers. It has been before observed, that the fantastic roof, so extensively adopted in China, is borrowed from the bell of the lotus-flower inverted; their doors and windows appear also to be formed after patterns presented by nature. As the lotus is an object of religious veneration, it is not surprising that they have introduced its likeness in those structures, with which human happiness is so closely associated; and the advantages which the mulberry leaf have, during all recorded time, conferred upon the nation, is sufficient reason for the introduction of its form also in architectural ornaments, and even in the doorways and casements of the noblest mansions. Many decorations, such as large china jars, sumptuous lanterns, and gilded images, are copied from the embellishments and furniture of Buddhist temples; yet the founders of that foolish faith have literally invented nothing new, they merely plagiarized and misapplied what they read “in trees and stones.” ’Tis scarcely forty years since the favourite ornament of all Chinese balustrades and lattices, was introduced into England, under the strange but memorable name of the “Trafalgar pattern;” yet it is seen in the oldest houses, and employed in the most antique cabinet work by its inventors. By the ingenious contortions of this popular ornament some of the flower-stands in the veranda of Elepoo’s villa are formed, others being supported by imitations of twisted branches.

From the pavilion of ceremony, on the right, a flight of many steps descends to a doorway of fanciful formation: through this, communication is preserved with the private apartments of the family; but the sterner sex, relatives excepted, seldom pass the boundary. The sleeping-rooms, and all other necessary appendages to the house of a mandarin, are situated on the left of the balcony, and are approached by a leaf-shaped doorway, more grotesque and unfrequent than is ever met with in the houses of the humbler classes. With them architecture is no farther cultivated than absolute necessity requires; their house-fronts being either entirely open, or only protected by trellis-work, and their windows and doors being always either square or circular. (* Vide Vol. i., pp. 74–93–95.)

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