The National Palace Museum (國立故宮博物院) is the most famous museum in 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. Most of the collection are high quality pieces collected by China’s ancient emperors.
Old Collection, New Additions
The collection of cultural artifacts held by the National Palace Museum is composed of an enormous treasure trove of objects inherited from the previous Sung, Yüan, Ming and Ch’ing dynasties. In 1948, because of the fighting worsened between the Nationalist and Communist armies in China, the Executive Directors of the Palace Museum made the resolution to send the most precious objects which are originally in Mainland China in the Museum’s collection to Taiwan. Therefore, National Palace Museum became the largest collection center of Chinese cultural artifacts.
The holdings from the Palace Museum included antiquities, paintings and calligraphic works and rare books and archival documents. In sum, the combined collection consisted of 655,713 cultural relics.
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Jadeite Cabbage with Insects Ch’ing Dynasty (1644-1911)
This piece is almost completely identical to a piece of bokchoy cabbage. Carved from verdant jadeite, the familiar subject, purity of the white vegetable body, and brilliant green of the leaves all create for an endearing and approachable work of art. Let’s also not forget the two insects that have alighted on the vegetable leaves! They are a locust and katydid, which are traditional metaphors for having numerous children. This work originally was placed in the Forbidden City’s Yung-ho Palace, which was the residence of the Kuang-hsü Emperor’s (r. 1875-1908) Consort Chin. For this reason, some have surmised that this piece was a dowry gift for Consort Chin to symbolize her purity and offer blessings for bearing many children. Although it is said that the association between the material of jadeite and the form of bokchoy began to become popular in the middle and late Ch’ing dynasty, the theme relating bokchoy and insects actually can be traced back to the professional insect-and-plant paintings of the Yüan to early Ming dynasty (13th-15th c.), when they were quite common and a popular subject among the people for its auspiciousness
Sandalwood furniture from the residence of the Ch’ing dynasty prince Kung-wang
Red sandalwood is an evergreen tree, and grows slowly, reaching 30 feet in height and 10 inches in diameter after 300 years. Because of its extremely slow growth, red sandalwood is only available in limited quantities. The growth rings of a red sandalwood tree are spaced so close together that they are almost impossible to distinguish without magnification. When new, objects made from red sandalwood generally appear purple or reddish in color, but darken over time. Eventually the wood will become almost black, and the grain becomes virtually invisible. The subtle texture and coloring of aged red sandalwood wood are fascinating. During the Ming and Qing periods, with European and American expatriates coming to China, red sandalwood furniture first became widely exposed to the world. The export of red sandalwood furniture started during this period. Some of the most exquisite pieces, which typically appear in international auction houses, are often pieces documented as missing in Chinese historical books. Antique red sandalwood furniture is among the most expensive furniture in auction markets, mainly because there are so few pieces and the scarcity of the wood means that they are typically constructed to the highest standards.
The scroll “Cold Food Observance” by Su Shih of the Northern Sung
Su Shih is a politician with a bold personality and direct scholar-official, he was accused of literary slander and banished from the capital. Although his career had its vicissitudes at the hands of political opponents, he has always been considered an immortal in the art of poetry and prose. This piece represents poetry that he wrote during exile to Huang-chou in 1082. It was transcribed into a work of calligraphy sometime thereafter. Despite Su’s upbeat character, the poetry has an air of dejection to it. The characters and the distance between them, for example, seem to vary rhythmically according to the emotional content. The variation in the thickness of and distance between the lines as well as the size of the characters help to give this work a uniquely individual quality. In fact, Su Shih’s calligraphy represents one of the more personal styles of the period.
“Ch’ing-ming Festival” by Court Painters of Ch’ing Dynasty(1644-1911)
The original upon which this work is based by Chang Tse-tuan (active early 12th century), is a masterful unfolding of Sung dynasty life and customs at the capital of Pien (K’ai-feng) in a long handscroll format. This theme, popular in the Northern Sung (960-1126), has been copied often throughout the ages. There are seven versions alone in the National Palace Museum, and this one by court painters of the imperial painting academy under the Ch’ien-lung Emperor (reigned 1736-1795) is one of the most famous. Each version reflects not only the painting style but also life and appearances of the period it was made. Brilliantly colored and characterized by sure, fine brushwork, this represents a fine example of Ch’ing court painting. Although this handscroll has lost much of the archaic feel of the Sung dynasty version, it is a valuable source of information for late Ming and early Ch’ing life and customs. The style also reflects the influence of Western painting techniques, popular at the court then. The buildings and streets, for example, were rendered with Western-style perspective, and even some Western-influenced architecture appears. The bridge and buildings are depicted in the ruled-line method (”chieh-hua”), and the figures are also exquisitely detailed.
