The treasures of the Chinese emperors will go to Prague. The National Museum will borrow objects from Taiwan
Cooperation with the National Palace Museum was established by the Director General of the National Museum, Michal Lukeš, who was a member of the Czech delegation led by Senator Jiří Drahoš (for STAN) in Taiwan. In Taipei, Lukeš signed memoranda of understanding with the National Palace Museum and the National Taiwan Museum.
According to Lukeš, the National Palace Museum is one of the most important museums in the world. Its collections include objects from eight thousand years of Chinese history from Neolithic times to the end of the Qing Empire. These include a number of rare bronzes, calligraphy, paintings, jade artwork, ceramics, books, historical documents, clothing and decorative items.
They are mostly things from the original imperial palace treasures that were located in mainland China and mainly in Beijing and were transferred to Taiwan during the wars.
Thanks to the promise to lend an exhibition from its collections, the National Museum got the opportunity to once again prepare a unique exhibition of world importance in a historic building in Prague. According to Lukeš, it should be as important as the exhibition of the Egyptian excavations of the Sun Kings was two years ago.
“The National Palace Museum lends very exceptionally and under very strict conditions. Therefore, I consider it a great success that they promised us this. A number of these objects will really leave the museum depository for the first time. Of course, similar to the Sun Kings, we will not only exhibit objects, but at the same time we will tell a story that we have yet to come up with.” he told Czech Radio.
A year of Czech music
The National Taiwan Museum, with which Lukeš also signed a memorandum, is the oldest museum in Taiwan. It records the development of the island in the fields of anthropology, earth science, zoology and botany.
Together with the Prague National Museum, we are currently preparing an exhibition in Taiwan about important Czech publishing houses as part of the Year of Czech Music. Czech classical music and Czech composers are very popular on the island.
Representatives of the National Taiwan Museum already signed in August in Prague in cooperation with the Czech National Technical Museum.
“Our cooperation will continue in the field of research, organizing exhibitions and preparing educational projects for the public. At the end, there is an exchange of experience in building railway museums that NTM is preparing for Masaryk Station in Prague and the National Taiwan Museum in Taipei. Although the distance between our countries is 10,000 kilometers, the cooperation is close and beneficial to us,” said NTM CEO Karel Ksandr at the time.