TAIPEI, June 25 (Xinhua) -- Taiwan residents will be able to see 130 valuable Tibetan antiques and artworks from the mainland at Taipei's Palace Museum for the first time from July 1 to Sept. 19.
The collections came from 12 museums and Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, including the Potala Palace, Norbulingka (the summer residence of the Dalai Lama), the Tibet Museum in Lhasa, the temples in the imperial resort of Chengde and the museum of Cultural Palace of Nationalities in Beijing, said a statement from the Palace Museum in Taipei on Friday.
"This will be the first time that Taiwan has such complete Tibetan cultural collection from the mainland," said Kung-shin Chou, the museum's director, at a press conference.
The "Tibet -- Treasures from the Roof of the World" exhibition will comprise four sections, introducing a strong Tibetan kingdom in the seventh century, Tibetan Buddhist art, exchanges between Tibet and the rest of China, and Tibetan customs.
The collections include Buddhist statues, ritual instruments, traditional musical instruments, sutra manuscripts, Thangka paintings, medical books and traditional household items.
Among the displays is a gilt bronze statue of Buddha, 1.6 meters high, made in the 11th to 12th Century. The statue, beautifully decorated with turquoise, silver and copper inlay, had been placed in the main hall of the Potala Palace before being shipped to Taipei.
"Since we worked with the Palace Museum in Beijing to launch an exhibition on the Emperor Yongzheng of the Qing Dynasty (1723-1735) last October, the door has seemed to open for cooperation with our mainland counterparts," Chou told Xinhua. "We have more and more opportunities to work with the mainland museums."
Collections lent by mainland museums, many of which were very valuable, provided Taiwan people a chance to learn about different aspects of Chinese culture and history, which they did not know before, she said.
Tao Ying, assistant research fellow from the museum of the Cultural Palace of Nationalities in Beijing, told Xinhua that she hoped more Taiwan people would get a better understanding of Tibet and Tibetan culture through the exhibition.
Her museum has offered seven items, all of which were gifts presented to Chinese emperors and empresses by the Dalai and Panchen lamas. |
