Grand View Garden

The Daguanyuan, variously translated as the Grand View Garden, Prospect Garden or Grand Prospect Garden, is a massive landscaped interior garden in the classic 18th century Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber, built within the compounds of the Rongguo Mansion. It is the setting for much of the story. The spectacular beauty of the garden was encapsulated by a quote in the novel, that "the mountains and waters were built to capture the essence of all of the sceneries in the heaven and on earth."Built in chapters 16 and 17 of the novel, it was the site of Jia Yuanchun's first visit home as an Imperial Concubine.