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National Palace Museum

Coordinates: 25°06′07″N 121°32′55″E / 25.10194°N 121.54861°E / 25.10194; 121.54861
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For the museum in Seoul, South Korea, see National Palace Museum of Korea

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National Palace Museum
Traditional Chinese國立故宮博物院
Simplified Chinese国立故宫博物院
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinGúolì Gùgōng Bówùyùan
National Palace Museum
國立故宮博物院
File:National Palace Museum view.jpg
Map
Established1964
LocationTaipei, Taiwan
Visitorsunknown
DirectorKung Shin Chou
CuratorMing Chu Fung
Websitewww.npm.gov.tw

The National Palace Museum is an art museum in Taipei City, Republic of China, in northern Taiwan. It has a permanent collection of over 650,000 pieces of ancient Chinese artifacts and artworks, making it one of the largest in the world.[1] Most of the collection are high quality pieces collected by China's ancient emperors.

The National Palace Museum should not be confused with the Palace Museum (note the absence of the word "National"), located inside the Forbidden City in Beijing, capital of the People's Republic of China. Both institutions share the same original roots, which was split in two as a result of the Chinese Civil War. [2]

History

The National Palace Museum was originally established as the Palace Museum in Beijing on October 10, 1925, shortly after the expulsion of Puyi,[3] the last emperor of China, from the Forbidden City by warlord Feng Yü-hsiang. The articles in the museum consisted of the valuables of the former Imperial family.[4]

In 1931, shortly after the Mukden Incident Chiang Kai-shek's National Government ordered the museum to quickly move its most valuable pieces out of the city to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Imperial Japanese Army. As a result, February 6th 1933, 13,491 boxes were moved in two trains from the plaza in front of the Gate of Divine Might to the South. The collection was moved to several places, including Shanghai, Anshun, Yibin until in the 1940s most of it ended up in Nanjing.

During the final years of the Chinese Civil War, from 1948 to 1949 Hang Li-wu, later director of the museum, supervised the transport of the collection in three parts to the harbor in Keelung, Taiwan.

With the victory of the Communists, the remainder of the exhibition was moved back to Beijing and the National Palace Museum was split into two (the part in mainland China, like all other such institutions, lost its "National" designation). The part in mainland China is centered on the Forbidden City.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the National Palace Museum was used by the Kuomintang to support its claim that the Republic of China was the sole legitimate government of all of China, in that it was the sole preserver of traditional Chinese culture amid the social change and Cultural Revolution in mainland China, and tended to emphasize Chinese nationalism. In recent years, the museum has focused more on local and minority cultures and has included some materials on loan from the People's Republic of China.

In English, the institution in Taipei is distinguished from the one in Beijing by the additional "National" designation. In common usage in Chinese, the institution in Taipei is known as the "Taipei Gugong", while that in Beijing is known as the "Beijing Gugong".

The National Palace Museum has also been controversial in Taiwan with many supporters of Taiwan independence regarding it as an unwanted symbol of China-centeredness.[citation needed]

National Palace Museum construction

The National Palace Museum building in Taipei was constructed from March 1964 and was completed in August 1965. Due to the insufficient space to put on display over 655,707[5] artifacts, the museum underwent renovations in 1967, 1970, and 1996. The museum reopened on Christmas Day 2006, after a long ten years renovation. It was accelerated in 2002, during this renovation period about two-thirds of the museum section was closed. The displays are rotated once every three months, which means 60,000 pieces can be viewed in a year and it would take nearly 12 years to see them all.[6]

Categories in the collection

The National Palace Museum main artifacts categories are:

Notable items

The Jadeite Cabbage length:18.7cm width:9.1cm thickness:5.07cm
The Meat-shaped Stone length: 3.4 cm Height: 1.6 cm

The museum houses several treasured items that are the pride of their collection and famous worldwide. They include:

  • The "Jadeite Cabbage" is a piece of jadeite carved into the shape of a cabbage head, and with a close look at the naked eye, a large and a small grasshopper will appear camouflaged in the leaves. The ruffled semi-translucent leaves attached is due to the masterful combination of various natural colour of the jade to recreate the colour variations of a real cabbage.[7]
  • The "Meat-shaped Stone",[8] 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.[9] The dyed and textured surface makes the layers of skin, lean meat, and fat materialized incredibly lifelike.
  • The "Palace version" of the Qingming Scroll. Even though this is only a copy (the original is in the Palace Museum, Beijing), it is nevertheless regarded as an artistic masterpiece.
  • The "Carved Olive-stone Boat",[10] is a tiny boat carved from an olive stone. The incredibly fully equipped skilled piece is carved with a covered deck and moveable windows. The interior has chairs, dishes on a table and eight figures representing the characters of Su Shih's "Latter Ode on the Red Cliff." The bottom is carved in minute character the entire 300 plus text with the date and the artist's name.
  • The "One Hundred Horses", is a painting done in 1728 by Giuseppe Castiglione by implementing a mixture of western artistic skills and utilizing eastern materials to realize a sense of realism to this native theme.[11]

Footnotes

  1. ^ "Categories in the Collection". National Palace Museum official website. Retrieved 2009-09-26.
  2. ^ "Taipei's National Palace Museum". BBC. Retrieved 2008-06-04.
  3. ^ "National Palace Museum Chronology of Events 1921-1931". National Palace Museum. Retrieved 2008-06-04. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |coauthors= (help)
  4. ^ "National Palace Museum Chronology of Events 1941-1951". National Palace Museum. Retrieved 2008-06-04. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |coauthors= (help)
  5. ^ "National Palace Museum - Categories in the Collection". National Palace Museum. Retrieved 2008-06-04. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |coauthors= (help)
  6. ^ "National Palace Museum". taiwan.com.au. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |coauthors= (help)
  7. ^ "Jadeite Cabbage with Insects". National Palace Museum. Retrieved 2008-06-04. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |coauthors= (help)
  8. ^ "Meat-shaped Stone". National Palace Museum. Retrieved 2008-06-04. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |coauthors= (help)
  9. ^ "Jadeite Cabbage is Moving to a New Gallery!". National Palace Museum. Retrieved 2008-06-04. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |coauthors= (help)
  10. ^ "Carved Olive-stone Boat". National Palace Museum. Retrieved 2008-06-04. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |coauthors= (help)
  11. ^ "One Hundred Horses". National Palace Museum. Retrieved 2008-06-04. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |coauthors= (help)

See also

  • Chinese art
  • Forbidden City
  • Taipei City
  • Republic of China
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25°06′07″N 121°32′55″E / 25.10194°N 121.54861°E / 25.10194; 121.54861

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