Lost painted sculptures donated by Taiwan group go on display in Shanxi

Nearly 30 lost painted sculptures donated by a nongovernmental organization from Taiwan went on display on Monday at the Shanxi Museum in Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province.

The works date from the Song Dynasty (960-1279) all the way through to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). All were donated by the United Association of Humanistic Buddhism, Chunghua, a Buddhist organization based in Taiwan.

Zhang Haijiao, curator of the exhibition and a member of the museum's cultural relics appraisal department, detailed how the works display distinctive artistic characteristics found in Shanxi, a region that has a long history of painted sculptures.

"They embody a cultural identity that reaches across the Taiwan Strait and a profound attachment to the homeland," Zhang said. He went on to note that this collection is the largest single array of lost cultural relics to have returned to Shanxi in recent years.

In 2024, the association donated a group of painted clay Buddhist statues to the National Cultural Heritage Administration, which later allocated them to the Shanxi Museum for permanent collection in March 2025.

The works encompass two traditional statuary forms: sculptures in the round and hanging sculptures. The round sculptures depict Skanda, a Buddhist guardian deity known as Weituo in Chinese, arhats, and young attendants. They bear the secular aesthetics of ancient times. The hanging sculptures, mostly Ming-dynasty works, feature Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and disciples. Their craftsmanship evokes the hanging sculptures found in Shanxi's ancient temples.

Chen Shuo contributed to this story.