"May descendants forever treasure and cherish them" is a phrase expressing the hopes and dreams of the ancients when it came to family heirlooms, but these could never be realized if the objects were not collected, preserved, and repaired over the years. Archival documents of the Palace Workshop in the Ch'ing dynasty provide ample evidence of the court's meticulous conservation of its collections of cultural artifacts.
       
"Centralize and manage, distinguish and categorize" were the basic principles behind the systematic storage system. Consequently, artifacts of the same type were centrally managed on a massive scale. Not only were they divided and sorted according to a host of criteria that included their material and medium, function, and condition, they were also classified by age and authenticity into grades. Finally, there was the careful yet artistic task of packaging them. Collection pieces were also catalogued according to display or storage site. Notes concerning the objects were meticulously recorded and kept with the original packing.
       
As for the conservation of artifacts, metal wares were often "cleaned like new", while fragmentary jade pieces were not discarded by the court but instead often re-carved to give them a new function and appearance. As is well known, sometimes all that is necessary to give an old object new life is an accessory or two.
       
In the efforts of Ch'ing court collecting, the aspect most detailed and closest to the modern system used today was that of "artifact identification". The emperor relied on the cultivation and expertise of his literary officials and craftsmen to compile records and archives as well as launch research projects on these artworks, recording in detail their sizes and illustrating them in manuals.