BEIJING — For Bonnie Burnham, it was like entering a Chinese version of an Egyptian tomb.
On a cool autumn day in 1999, the president of the World Monuments Fund followed her guides into an area where few had set foot since 1924, when China's last emperor vacated the palace and locked the doors to the studio behind him.
What she remembers most is the musty air and thick coat of dust that covered the floor, the delicate pieces of furniture, the lushly paneled walls etched with courtly lines of calligraphy.
"There was a sense that time had stopped there," she recalled.
On Monday, Burnham stood among dignitaries from the Forbidden City's Palace Museum to unveil the refurbishment of one of the most historically important interiors to survive from China's imperial past.
The tiny two-story lodge known as Juanqinzhai, a window into the private world of one of the Middle Kingdom's most artistic emperors, will soon be open to the public.
The $3-million restoration, which took nearly a decade to complete, marks an extraordinary partnership of Chinese artisans and Western expertise -- a rare instance in which China sought foreign assistance and know-how to restore one of its precious historical treasures.
The results have been so successful that the World Monuments Fund, a private, nonprofit New York-based preservation group, is extending its alliance with Chinese cultural officials to restore the Qianlong Garden's 26 other pavilions and four courtyards.
The face-lift's first phase involved detailed excavations of the studio's interior, trips to the U.S. by Palace Museum staff for strategy sessions and a nationwide search in China for artisans capable of the delicate renovations.
"None of us had any kind of road map. Neither the Chinese nor the American side had any experience with this specific type of restoration," said Nancy Berliner, the curator of Chinese art at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass.
The Juanqinzhai studio, a two-acre private retreat nestled in the northeastern corner of the Forbidden City, was built in the 1770s by the Qing dynasty Emperor Qianlong for personal use after his retirement.
He called it the "Studio of Exhaustion From Diligent Service."
Its construction occurred when China was engaged with the West in trade and the exchange of aesthetics and ideas. In 1793, Qianlong received a delegation from the court of Britain's George III.
