Beauties from ancient paintings come alive

[Photo: Palace Museum]

The Palace Museum has posted a series of flash animations of ancient beauties through its official account on WeChat, which is based on the famous Qing Dynasty painting Twelve Beauties collected by the museum.

The animations vividly depict these court ladies' elegant life, as we can see them looking at a mirror, drinking tea, watching butterflies or doing needle work.

After the release of the online hit animations of the "cute" Emperor Yongzheng earlier this year, netizens jokingly said that Emperor Yongzheng's "goddesses" have also been brought to life.

The same themed app "Twelve Beauties" has also been available on iPad which is for users to view accessories, furniture, and interior decorations in the ancient palace, enjoy traditional auspicious Chinese motifs, fashionable hairstyles in ancient times and court lady paintings.

The painting Twelve Beauties is a series of 12 paintings created during the early Qing Dynasty using gongbi technique, a realistic Chinese painting style. The paintings are all the same size, 184 cm long and 98 cm wide, and depict scenes of court ladies' entertainment in the palace.