Ruyi guan

• Established: 1736
• Chinese: 如意館 (rúyì guǎn)

The Rúyì guǎn, or Office of Wish Fulfillment, was an office within the Qing Dynasty Imperial government, which produced a variety of paintings, decorations, and other art/craft objects for the Imperial Palaces. Many of the most famous paintings and wall-painting schemes of the era of the Qianlong Emperor were produced by this workshop.

Established in 1736, it employed both European Jesuit and Chinese artists, who worked in a variety of media. While Jesuit artists worked in a number of offices within the Court, the Rúyì guǎn was the only office in which they worked under the direct supervision of the Emperor.

References

• Michael Greenberg, “A New Imperial Landscape: Ritual, Representation, and Foreign Relations at the Qianlong Court,” PhD diss, Yale (2015), 9.