The Hall of Literary Brilliance (), or the Hall of Literary Glory or Wenhua Hall, is a hall in the outer court of the

Forbidden City The Forbidden City () is the Chinese Empire, imperial Chinese palace, palace complex in the center of the Imperial City, Beijing, Imperial City in Beijing, China. It was the residence of 24 Ming dynasty, Ming and Qing dynasty, Qing dynasty L ...

, located far east of the Hall of Supreme Harmony. In the early

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of ...

, the hall was originally used as the residence of the

heir apparent An heir apparent is a person who is first in the order of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting by the birth of another person. A person who is first in the current order of succession but could be displaced by the birth of a more e ...

. However, starting in 1536, Ming emperors began to use the building as a secondary hall. During both the Ming and

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...

, the hall hosted grand imperial lectures on Confucian classics and served as a place for the emperor to meet his scholars and officials. The hall was also where palace examinations papers would be reviewed and marked by nine readers who would be sequestered in the hall for two days. The hall gave its name to one of the seven different titles of

grand secretary The Grand Secretariat, or the Cabinet (), was nominally a coordinating agency but ''de facto'' the highest institution in the imperial government of the Chinese Ming dynasty. It first took shape after the Hongwu Emperor abolished the office of Ch ...

in late-imperial China. Becoming Grand Secretary of Wenhua Hall was considered to be an especially prestigious honour for high-ranking mandarins. From 2008 to 2017, the hall served as the location of the

Palace Museum The Palace Museum (), also known as the Beijing Palace Museum, is a large national museum complex housed in the Forbidden City at the core of Beijing, China. With , the museum inherited the imperial royal palaces from the Ming and Qing dynast ...

's ceramics gallery before it was moved to the Hall of Martial Valor.

References

External links

* Buildings and structures in Beijing Forbidden City {{China-stub