# Yongle Dadian, juan 10,110-10,112 (Chester Beatty Library, C 1757) > The Hanlin Academy compilation project, under chief compilers Xie Jin and Yao Guangxiao (Daoyan) - 1562-1567 (this copy); text originally compiled 1403-1408 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/hanlin-academy-yongle-dadian-compilers/yongle-dadian/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-12 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** The Hanlin Academy compilation project, under chief compilers Xie Jin and Yao Guangxiao (Daoyan) - **Date:** 1562-1567 (this copy); text originally compiled 1403-1408 - **Medium:** Hand-copied text in red and black ink on Xuan paper, bound in yellow silk-covered boards - **Dimensions:** The edition's standard format is approximately 40.6 x 25.4 cm (Huntington Library volume, published measurement). Exact dimensions of this specific volume, C 1757, are not published in the sources consulted for this record. - **Object type:** Manuscript - **Period:** Chinese, Ming dynasty (Jiajing-Longqing reigns) - **Current location:** Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, Ireland - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary One physical volume, three juan, out of the roughly 400 that survive from an encyclopedia that once ran to 11,095. It is not the 1408 original commissioned by the Yongle Emperor, which no longer exists in any form; it is part of a hand copy made in 1562-1567 on the order of the Jiajing Emperor, the only later emperor known to have actually used the book.This particular volume, Chester Beatty Library C 1757, spent about three centuries in the Hanlin Academy library in Peking until Boxer forces set the Academy alight on 23 June 1900 during the siege of the Legations. It was taken from the ruins by a British customs official present at the siege, kept by his family for more than half a century, and sold to the mining magnate and collector Alfred Chester Beatty in London in September 1954 for 120 pounds sterling, together with a sibling volume. It has been in Dublin, on public view, ever since.The corpus it belongs to is still being pieced back together: volumes continue to surface at auction and in private hands into the 2020s, and Chinese institutions are actively buying them back. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **1403-1408** Ming imperial court (Yongle Emperor) `[documented]` (origin) The text was compiled 1403-1408 by a project of some 2,169 scholars under Yao Guangxiao and Xie Jin, on the Yongle Emperor's orders. This original fine copy (zhengben) does not survive; no page of it has been identified since the Qing dynasty. Its fate is unknown. - **1562-1567** Ming imperial court (Jiajing Emperor) `[documented]` (recopying) After a series of fires in the Forbidden City in the mid-16th century, the Jiajing Emperor ordered a full duplicate copy (fuben) made. This volume is part of that duplicate copy, not the lost 1408 original. Every surviving volume of the Yongle Dadian known today, at every institution, is understood to be from this Jiajing-Longqing copy. - **1567-1900** Hanlin Academy library, Peking `[unknown]` (gap) No specific record of this volume's location or handling during this period was found in the sources consulted. It is assumed, on the basis of where it resurfaced, to have remained in the Hanlin Academy library, but the volume is not individually documented before 1900. - **1900-06-23-1900** James Russell Brazier `[documented]` (removal from the Hanlin ruins) On 23 June 1900, forces under General Dong Fuxiang set fire to the Hanlin Academy during the siege of the Legations. A mixed party of British and American marines and Customs volunteers entered and put out the fire; volumes of the encyclopedia not destroyed were subsequently taken by individuals present. David Helliwell's provenance research traces this volume, together with its sibling C 1756 (juan 803-806), to James Russell Brazier, at the time Chief Secretary of the Inspectorate of the Imperial Maritime Customs and present at the siege. - **1900-1954-09-21** James Russell Brazier, then his son Col. William Russell Brazier `[documented]` (family custody) The volume, with its sibling, remained with the Brazier family for 54 years. James Russell Brazier gave a separate single volume (juan 11907) to his alma mater, the University of Aberdeen, in 1922. This pair passed to his son, William Russell Brazier, born in Aberdeen in 1897, who sold them in 1954. The exact date and manner of the transfer between father and son is not documented in the sources consulted. - **1954-09-21-1954-09-22** Sir Alfred Chester Beatty `[documented]` (purchase) Col. Brazier brought the two volumes (C 1756 and C 1757) to the British Museum's Department of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts intending to sell them to a dealer for 100 pounds. H.C. Lowe of that department, also an advisor to Chester Beatty, offered 110 pounds; Brazier asked for 120 and Lowe agreed on the spot, by telephone, the same morning, 21 September 1954. Chester Beatty's secretary John Wooderson collected the volumes from the British Museum the following day. The transaction is documented in two letters in the Chester Beatty Library Archives (Chester Beatty Papers 474). - **1954-present** Chester Beatty Library, Dublin `[documented]` (acquisition) In the collection of Alfred Chester Beatty at his private library on Shrewsbury Road, Dublin, from 1954. On Beatty's death in 1968 the library and its collection passed, per his bequest, to the Irish nation as a public institution, now housed at Dublin Castle since 2000. ## Open questions - What became of the 1408 original (the zhengben)? Its loss around 1644-45 is the best-supported explanation but is not documented at the moment of loss; the story that it was buried with the Jiajing Emperor is explicitly labelled apocryphal by the scholar who reports it. - How exactly did this volume pass from James Russell Brazier to his son William Russell Brazier, and where was it kept between 1900 and 1954? No continuous chain of custody is published. - What text does juan 10,110-10,112 actually preserve, and under which of the encyclopedia's rhyme categories does it fall? Not stated in any source consulted for this record. - Was any export formality required to move the volume from London to Dublin in September 1954? No customs or export record was located. - What is the current, reconciled total of surviving Yongle Dadian volumes worldwide? Recent sources give figures from just over 400 to 'more than 400 across 30-plus collections', and the National Library of China's own count is given as 221 in one 2023 source; ongoing repatriations, including the 2026 Hangzhou donation, make this a moving target rather than a settled figure. - Has Chester Beatty Library published a formal conservation or condition report on C 1757 specifically? None was located for this record. ## Sources - [1] David Helliwell, 'Holdings of Yongle dadian in European Libraries', revised 14 April 2021. The single most detailed published provenance census of the European holdings, drawing on Chester Beatty Library archives, Cambridge University Library, University of Aberdeen and other institutional records. - [2] Wikimedia Commons file description and extmetadata, 'Page from the Great encyclopaedia of the Yongle Reign (Yongle dadian) (CBL C 1751, f.34v).jpg', crediting Chester Beatty Library and dating the leaf 1562-1567; credit line links to the Chester Beatty Library's own online viewer for item C 1757. Note: the uploaded filename reads 'C 1751' but the image's own description text and the linked CBL viewer URL both read 'C 1757'; this record follows the viewer URL and description text as the more specific identifier and flags the filename discrepancy for the editor. - [3] Chester Beatty Library online image viewer, item C_1757. - [4] Duncan M. Campbell, 'The Huntington Library's Volume of the Yongle Encyclopaedia (Yongle Dadian): A Bibliographical and Historical Note', East Asian History, no. 42. Peer-reviewed bibliographical and historical study, the source for the compilation process, the Jiajing recopy, physical format, and a direct critique of the standard loss narrative. - [5] Library of Congress, 'About this Collection', Yongle Da Dian digital collection. States the Library's 41 volumes are from the 1562-1567 Jiajing-Longqing hand copy, 'mainly inconsecutive', acquired in the early 20th century by purchase and donation. - [6] Library of Congress Newsroom, 'Library of Congress Completes Digitization of Yongle Encyclopedia, Largest Reference Work of Pre-Modern Era', 9 May 2023. - [7] Wikipedia, 'Yongle Encyclopedia'. Tertiary source, used for the 1860 Second Opium War loss figures and the aggregate modern volume counts by institution. Flagged for replacement with a peer-reviewed source such as Campbell (source 4) or a National Library of China publication. - [8] Global Times, 'Two volumes of "world's largest encyclopedia" return to China after century abroad', July 2026. Reports the private purchase, repatriation and July 2026 donation of two further volumes (juan 2268-2269 and 7391-7392) surfaced at a French auction house in May 2020. - [9] China Daily, 'The return of Yongle Dadian', 23 January 2026. Reports the National Library of China Publishing House's facsimile edition of the Jiajing-Longqing copy, unveiled January 2026. - [10] Wikipedia, 'Alfred Chester Beatty'. Tertiary source, used for Beatty's biography, move to Dublin in 1950, honorary Irish citizenship in 1957, and state funeral in 1968. Flagged for replacement with the Dictionary of Irish Biography entry. - [11] China Daily (regional), 'China boosts ancient book preservation with modern technology', 6 March 2023. States the National Library of China holds 221 volumes, and describes the Yongle Canon HD Images Database released February 2023. - [12] Cornell Chronicle, 'Talk to describe conserving centuries-old Chinese encyclopedia', September 2022. Describes the Library of Congress conservation and digitization programme (41 volumes) and Cornell University's own five volumes and their donors. - [13] Retrowow, 'How much did people earn in the 1950s?', citing the Bank of England 'Three Centuries of Data' dataset for average UK weekly wages in 1950 (5.60 pounds) and 1959 (8.90 pounds). Used, with the method disclosed in the text, to give an order-of-magnitude sense of the 1954 sale price. - [14] Wikimedia Commons file description and extmetadata, 'Yongle Encyclopedia(2535-2536).pdf', sourced from the World Digital Library, crediting the National Library of China and dated 1403-1408 by the uploader (the volume itself, per the Library of Congress's own cataloguing convention for the same WDL item, is part of the Jiajing-Longqing copy rather than the lost original). - [15] Wikimedia Commons file descriptions for 'Yongle Emperor portrait.jpg' and 'Portrait officiel de l'empereur Jiajing.jpg', both official Ming court hanging-scroll portraits held by the National Palace Museum, Taipei, in the public domain. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.