There’re two Palace Museums in China—one lies in Beijing, the other in Taipei. Both institutions share the same original roots, which split in two as a result of the Chinese Civil War.
The one in Beijing, popularly known as the Forbidden City, houses a collection of 1.5 million valuable art works, most of which were in the possession of the imperial families of the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties.
1,300 kilometers away on the outskirts of Taipei, there is also a smaller palace museum built in the same pattern of the original. It has a permanent collection of over 650,000 pieces of ancient Chinese artifacts and artworks, 92% of which originate from the Palace Museum in Beijing.
This January, a 12-episode TV documentary was aired by China Central Television (CCTV), offering audiences the story of the Palace Museum of Taipei and its collections. As the documentary unfolded, the museum’s top ten collections respectively selected by experts and through on-line voting were introduced.
Largely due to different selection standards, the two groups of Top Ten vary a lot and have only one same piece: Wang Xizhi’s calligraphy masterpiece “Timely Clearing After Snowfall.”
Top Ten Selected by Experts
San-shi-pan Plate
Western Zhou Dynasty (About 1,100-771BC)
San-shi-pan Plate is a bronze ware of the late Western Zhou Dynasty. With an inscription of 375 Chinese characters recording how land was contracted at that time, the plate is historically important for people today to study the Western Zhou land system.
Oval Narcissus Vessel in Light Greenish Blue Glaze
Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127)
6.7cm high, 23cm long and 16.4cm wide
This oval-shaped porcelain vessel with light sky-blue glaze is a piece of Ru ware porcelain made in Ru Kiln, the Song Dynasty's government-run kiln in Linru County, Henan Province. About 20 similar pieces are collected in the Palace Museum of Taipei.
Gilded and turquoises-imbedded mandala
Qing Dynasty
14.8 cm high and 32.4 cm in diameter
Buddhist mandalas are sacred representations of the universe, and are used in meditation, rituals and architecture. Thoroughly gilded and imbedded with turquoises, this mandala is a rare art treasure. In 1652, the fifth Dalai Lama gave Emperor Shunzhi (1638--1661) this mandala as a gift, symbolizing the close political connection between the Qing Dynasty and Tibet.
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