National Palace Museum

Chloe Lim, Natalie Yeo, Lauren Tan,

Rebecca Goh, Chelsea Goh, Valerie Gan

Background History

National Palace Museum 國立故宮博物院

antique museum in Shilin, Taipei, Taiwan

Houses a permanent collection of more than 696,000 pieces of ancient Chinese artifacts and artworksOver 8,000 years of Chinese

history from the Neolithic age to the late Qing Dynasty.

The National Palace Museum and Palace Museum, located inside the Forbidden City in Beijing, share the same original roots, which was split in two as a result of the Chinese Civil War.

The institution in Taipei is distinguished from the one in Beijing by the additional "National" designation.

National Palace Museum 國立故宮博物院

● Paintings and Calligraphy● Antiquities

○ Ceramics○ Jades○ Bronzes○ Curios

● Rare books and documents

these artifacts and items are from the different dynasties of ancient China

Paintings and Calligraphy

● date from the Tang Dynasty (618–907) to the modern era. ● collection covers over one thousand years of Chinese paintings● Wide range of genres:

○ landscape○ flower and bird, ○ figure painting○ boundary painting

● Most famous paintings: ○ Qing Palace version of Zhang Zeduan's Along the River During the Qingming

Festival. this is a copy (the original is in the Palace Museum in Beijing), ○ Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains (Wu-yung version) by Huang Gongwang of

Yuan Dynasty is one of the most dramatized pieces.

Paintings and Calligraphy

The museum has a vast collection of calligraphy works from the hands of major calligraphers, scholars and important courtiers in history. The calligraphy works date from the Jin (265–420) and Tang (618–907) dynasties, with a variety of styles.

Antiquities

Major collection site

for the

aforementioned

kilns.

Official kilns of the

Ming and Qing

dynasties (E.g. the

doucai porcelains

of the Chenghua

reign in the Ming

Dynasty) are of

excellent quality.

Bronzes -- Zong Zhou Zhong commissioned by King Li of Zhou, is the most important musical instrument cast under his royal decree.

Mao Gong Ding of

the late Western

Zhou Dynasty

carries the longest

Chinese bronze

inscriptions

Ru wares were made exclusively

for the court and were ranked

among the Ding, Jun,Guan and

Ge as the "five classic wares" of

the Song Dynasty

"Jadeite

Cabbage" A piece of jadeite carved into the shape of

a cabbage head, and with a large and a

small grasshopper camouflaged in the

leaves.

Ruffled semi-translucent leaves attached

is due to the masterful combination of

various natural color of the jade to

recreate the color variations of a real

cabbage

Antiquities

■ often exhibited together with the

Jadeite Cabbage. A piece of

jasper, a form of agate, the

strata of which are cleverly used

to create a likeness of a piece of

pork cooked in soy sauce.

■ The dyed and textured surface

makes the layers of skin, lean

meat, and fat materialized

incredibly lifelike.

"Meat-shaped Stone"

○○

"Carved Olive-stone Boat"

Rare books

range from the Song and Yuan dynasties to the

Ming and Qing dynasties, amounting to over

200,000 volumes

○ Yongle Encyclopedia and Siku Quanshu

(Complete Library of the Four Treasuries) are among the examples.

Historical documents

Jiu Manzhou Dang, a set of Manchu archives that

are the sourcebook of Manwen Laodang and a

primary source of early Manchu history.

The court archives are available for research in the

history of the Qing Dynasty.

The museum’s 3 floors

Third- Early China: This charts the beginnings of Chinese civilisation in the Neolithic period through to the end of the Han dynasty in 220 AD. Early pottery and exquisite jade pieces are expected to be seen here.

First- It consists of galleries dedicated to Qing dynasty furniture, a vast array of religious sculptural art and rare books.

Second- Han to Qing Dynasty: Here a range of artwork, mediums and materials expands dramatically from porcelain and ceramics, to fine art, jewellery and sculpture. The rare collection of silk-screen painting and calligraphy is truly magnificent.

Significance of the National Palace Museum, Taipei

● The full collection, which consists of some 650,000 pieces, spans over many dynasties. ○ Each exhibit, however, puts on display only about 1,700 pieces at a time.

● Many of the artifacts on display were possessions of the former imperial family. One very familiar one would be the Qin Dynasty.

● The famous jade cabbage was found as part of the Concubine Jin’s dowry.

This museum acts as a memorial to the many priceless pieces of history for the world to view.

What we hope to learn from National Palace Museum

❖ to appreciate Chinese history and culture

❖ to understand how the Chinese culture has evolved over the many dynasties

Importance of a museum

● Permanent institutions which acquire, conserve, research, and exhibit, for

purposes of study, and enjoyment, material evidence of people and their

environment

● Bear out a relationship with the past that attaches value to tangible traces

left by our ancestors, and aim to protect them

○ Such collections now constitute the major part of what is universally

known as the cultural heritage.

■ Heritage -- our legacy from the past, what we live with today, and

what we pass on to future generations

■ Irreplaceable sources of life and inspiration

○ Museums safeguard and preserve the heritage as a whole

○ Essential in allowing a deeper understanding and establishing both its

meaning and its possession

Importance of a museum

● helps in the preparation of a global ethic based on practice for the

conservation, protection and diffusion of cultural heritage values.

● Presents the interactions between culture and nature

● Works for the endogenous development of social communities whose

testimonies it conserves while lending a voice to their cultural aspirations.

○ Attentive to social and cultural change, helping us to present our

identity and diversity in an ever-changing world.

How do we preserve our own heritage?

raise awareness among the people of the country - by relaying the importance of the country’s heritage to the people, so that they would feel the duty to protect it too

Thank you!