Film and Discussion: Forbidden City: The Great Within

To coincide with the exhibition Adorning the Inner Court: Jun Ware for the Chinese Palace (May 20–August 13, 2017), the Harvard Art Museums will present a screening of Francis Gerard’s documentary Forbidden City: The Great Within (1995; 50 min.; color). Filmed on location at the famed imperial palace complex in Beijing, the documentary dramatizes scenes of daily life at the palace during the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) and includes footage of palace interiors where many ceramics in the Jun Ware exhibition had once been collected and used. Before the screening, Mark C. Elliott, vice provost of international affairs and the Mark Schwartz Professor of Chinese and Inner Asian History at Harvard University, will provide introductory remarks and further insight on the art-collecting interests of the Qing emperors.

The screening will take place in Menschel Hall, Lower Level.

Free and open to the public.

Support for this program is provided by the Richard L. Menschel Endowment Fund. Adorning the Inner Court: Jun Ware for the Chinese Palace and its related online Special Collection are funded in part by the Gregory and Maria Henderson Fund and by generous support from Terry and William Carey.