Treasured antiquities from Taiwan’s National Palace Museum will go on display at one or more major Japan museums in 2014, according to the NPM Feb. 9.
Following a preliminary meeting with Tokyo National Museum Deputy Director Hiroyuki Shimatani in Taipei Feb. 8, NPM Director Chou Kung-shin said, “We have reached a consensus to make all necessary preparations for this event to take place the year after next.”
Details including loan items and exact dates of the exhibition are yet to be finalized, the NPM said.
Besides Tokyo, the artifacts will possibly also tour in other Japanese cities, such as Fukuoka, Kyoto and Nara.
To date, NPM treasures have been exhibited in four foreign countries—Austria, France, Germany and the U.S. The Japan tour is expected to be the NPM’s first overseas display in Asia.
According to sources, Japan has since the 1980s repeatedly voiced interest in organizing exhibitions of items from the NPM. Talks got under way in earnest after March 2011, when the Japanese parliament passed a law protecting Taiwan artifacts from seizure by a third country while on display in Japan.
Sources said many people in Japan are looking forward to seeing the most popular NPM pieces, including the “Jadeite Cabbage with Insects” and “Meat-shaped Stone.”
Established in northern Taipei City in 1965, the National Palace Museum is home to the world’s largest collection of Chinese imperial art, boasting 650,000 antiquities including scrolls, calligraphy, vases and bronze utensils spanning 7,000 years from the prehistoric Neolithic period to the end of the Qing dynasty. (THN)
Write to Kwangyin Liu at kwangyin.liu@mail.gio.gov.tw