Four hundred and seven emperors have ruled over all or part of China for more than 2000 years, from the founding of the Empire in 221 BCE to the proclamation of the Republic in 1912.

In the Chinese tradition which designates the emperor as “Son of the Sky”, he acts as a go-between between the sky and the earth. His mission is to guarantee cosmic harmony, both through his good governance and through his scrupulous respect for rites.

In the absence of any depiction of the person of the sovereign in the Jacques-Edouard Berger collection, the fifty or so objects on view, a third of which date from the Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE), conjure up the emperor’s various functions and his human environment.