Album leaf, ink and color on silk
The Manual of Birds, originally titled the Collaborative Copy of Jiang Tingxi’s “Manual of Birds” by Yu Sheng and Zhang Weibang, consists of 12 volumes, each containing 30 illustrations, for a total of 360 illustrations. The National Palace Museum holds the first four volumes, while the remaining eight are preserved in the Beijing Palace Museum. In 1750, court painters Yu Sheng and Zhang Weibang were commissioned to reproduce Jiang Tingxi’s “Manual of Birds” in the imperial collection. This project spanned 11 years and was completed in 1761. The Manual of Birds includes zoological records, with the right-hand pages featuring detailed gongbi-style paintings that incorporate Western techniques to depict various bird species. Each painting can stand alone as an independent album leaf. The left-hand pages record the birds’ names, shapes, characteristics, habitats, and ecological behavior in both Chinese and Manchu scripts, making it akin to a modern encyclopedic ornithological atlas.