An exhibit featuring 100 specially chosen artifacts, calligraphy works and paintings will be on display at the National Palace Museum until next January as part of the ROC centennial celebrations, according to the museum Sept. 23.
“The artworks were selected out of over 680,000 NPM objects for their historic significance, rarity, artistry and popularity,” said NPM Director Chou Kung-shin.
The pieces include “White Pillow in the Shape of a Recumbent Child” from the Northern Song dynasty, a white porcelain pillow modeled into a reclining infant with its face turned toward one side.
“The piece employs the accomplished modeling and decorative techniques of Ding ware and is one of only three surviving child-shaped pillows in the world,” Chou said.
“Early Spring,” a painting from the Song dynasty, is one of the early extant masterpieces by the painter Guo Xi. “It successfully expresses the vitality of spring by means of a monumental landscape composition,” Chou said.
Also on display is a complete set of the “Siku Quanshu,” an immense collection of books compiled during the Qing dynasty. Containing over 3,000 books ranging in time from the pre-Qin period up until roughly 1779, “it is a massive assemblage of ancient wisdom and a book series on a scale never seen before the world over,” Chou said.
Established in 1925, the NPM has collections inherited from the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. The 100 works on display “illustrate a continuous heritage of art and culture, as well as their multiple facets,” Chou said.
The exhibit, entitled “Splendid Treasures: A Hundred Masterpieces of the National Palace Museum,” runs from Sept. 23 of this year until Jan. 3, 2012. (HZW)
Write to Grace Kuo at morningk@mail.gio.gov.tw