At first glance, the peach-shaped box with coral inlay appears to be carved from red lacquer. But the piece – made specifically to celebrate the birthday of the Yongzheng Emperor (1678-1735) – is, in fact, a gold-bodied box with a surface overlaid with red coral. Each fragment of the vivid gemstone is cut and set so precisely that the joins almost disappear, creating a shimmering mottled crimson skin.

It is a deliberate exercise in restraint, executed entirely in one medium and, unusually for an imperial commission, left completely unadorned: no enamel, no gilding, no carved decoration, just the clean, taut lines of the vessel, a simple handle and the cool grey sheen of polished metal.

It is one of 157 national treasures currently on show at the Hong Kong Palace Museum as part of the “Design for the Forbidden City: Imperial Workshops of the Qing Court” exhibition. Other must-sees include beautiful jade works such as the “Myriad Cycles” box with 12 zodiac animals.

On loan from the Palace Museum in Beijing, the collection tells the story of the sprawling production network that supplied the court with everything from daily necessities to ornamental masterpieces. It showcases not only the era’s finest artisans and, as in the case of the red coral box, the taste of their very important client – the emperor.

“Through some of these items, you can even see their personalities,” Hong Kong Palace Museum curator Dr Yi-Li Hou says.

Known as the Zaobanchu – Office of Manufacture – these imperial workshops operated as high-end custom studios that produced luxury goods inside the palace, for the palace.

They were established in the late 17th century under the Kangxi Emperor (1654-1722), and for the next 200 years, the Qing court ran what amounted to its own vertically integrated manufacturing empire. At its peak, it encompassed more than 40 specialised ateliers producing everything from imperial robes and jade carvings to firearms and astronomical maps.

“You’ll see that the Qing people were completely eclectic,” Hou says. “They mixed materials, styles, influences, which were, in many ways, very modern.”The first workshops were in the Yangxin Dian, or the Hall of Mental Cultivation, within the inner court, but they were not confined to the Forbidden City. A branch was established at the Yuanmingyuan, the Old Summer Palace, during the Yongzheng reign (1722-1735), and by the Qianlong period (1735-1796), hundreds of rooms were added and workshops in the capital had also been relocated there.

The institution also operated a national production network, sending designs and models to specialised facilities in Suzhou, Hangzhou and Guangzhou for certain crafts.

Beneath this administrative layer, the workshops were divided into ateliers, offices, factories and halls. The roster changed over time, but surviving records list more than 40 distinct units, including a glass factory, clockmaking office, enamel workshop, jade workshop, armoury, cannon workshop, map office and even an eyeglasses workshop.

The emperor would not hesitate to tell them himself exactly how he wanted them to do itHong Kong Palace Museum curator Dr Yi-Li Hou The imperial workshops produced three broad categories of goods. First were the bespoke imperial commissions, the personal objects ordered by the emperor himself, without regard to cost.

Second were prototypes for items needed in larger quantities. For these, the Zaobanchu determined the decoration, form and specifications, frequently producing a sample before passing the design to other official workshops for mass production – princely robes and furnishings, for instance, were standardised through the Zaobanchu before being manufactured elsewhere.

Third, and perhaps most consequentially, came technological development. Under the Kangxi Emperor, Western artists and craftsmen – among them the Italian Jesuit missionary and painter Giuseppe Castiglione (Lang Shining) – worked alongside Chinese artisans, and techniques such as painted enamel, certain porcelain glazes and imperial glassware were developed or refined within the Zaobanchu.

“Archives reveal a very hands-on approach, and emperors would directly tell their ministers what to do, according to their own preferences and styles,” Hou says. “The emperor would not hesitate to tell them himself exactly how he wanted them to do it.”The objects are intensely personal and reveal as much about the emperors’ tastes and temperaments as about Qing craftsmanship. The exhibition at the Hong Kong Palace Museum showcases the workshops that operated under Qing emperors Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong.

One highlight is an antler armchair built from deer hunted by the Kangxi Emperor. Rather than being carved from a single block of wood, its frame is assembled from the branching antlers of the deer, shaped and fitted so that the natural curves and forks of the horns form the arms, legs and supports of the chair. The result is a piece that looks organic and almost skeletal, its surface retaining the irregular texture of raw antler.

Decades later, his grandson, the Qianlong Emperor, replaced its backboard and inscribed it with a poem, transforming a piece of furniture into a private memorial to his grandfather. In it, he writes that he “dare not sit upon it, ever in awe and admiration”.

Contemporary observers were struck by the concentration of talent. The workshops – colloquially known as the or “workshop of 100 crafts” – recruited the finest craftsmen from across the empire and gave them access to premium materials such as rosewood, red sandalwood, gold, silver, gemstones and mother-of-pearl.

The Zaobanchu’s surviving archives – known as the , or “work records” – capture a running dialogue between the throne and the workshops.

They record not only what was made, but who ordered it, what materials were used, how long it took and, crucially, what the emperor thought of the result. Entries frequently show emperors rejecting finished pieces, ordering modifications, or demanding that an object be remade entirely.

The archives also preserve something unexpectedly human: the identities of the individual craftsmen themselves. The Zaobanchu was a high-security precinct within the Forbidden City and entry was strictly controlled.

Craftsmen had no photographs to identify them, so they were issued wooden identification tablets – known as – that recorded their place of origin and distinguishing physical features. These modest wooden tags are among the few objects in the exhibition that commemorate the talented artisans themselves.

“They didn’t have photographs before, so they would write where you were from – for the imperial workshops, which place you were a craftsman from – and what facial features you had,” Hou says. “We saw this tablet. On it was written that one of the artists was yellow-complexioned and bearded.”