Qing relics set to travel to Taiwan

By Xie Yu (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-02-16 09:29

Chou Kung-shin, director of Taipei's "National Palace Museum", left, looks at a room inside a palace during her visit to Forbidden City in Beijing, February 15, 2009. [Agencies]

The mainland has agreed to lend 29 Qing Dynasty relics from Beijing's Palace Museum - better known as Forbidden City - to Taiwan to be displayed at a joint exhibition in October.

The Forbidden City and Taipei's "National Palace Museum" signed seven other agreements at their first-ever high-level meeting in Beijing Sunday. The two museums together have the most precious collection of Chinese relics.

Two months ago, Hsu Hsiao-te, head of the Cultural Arts Fund at Taiwan's "National Palace Museum" said his museum was planning to stage a joint exhibition in three to five years.

The 29 Qing Dynasty relics, separated 60 years ago because of the civil war, will travel for the first time to Taiwan. Some relics originally in the collection of the Forbidden City were carried to Taiwan before the founding of the People's Republic of China.

A three-month exhibition, with the focus on Emperor Yongzheng (1722-1735) of the Qing Dynasty (1616-1911), is likely to be held in Taiwan in October, for which the island needs to borrow the portraits of Yongzheng and his concubines from the mainland.

Personal exchange, cooperation in academic research, exhibitions, and publishing and sales of souvenirs are part of the agreements reached Sunday.

Chou Kung-shi, director of Taipei's "National Palace Museum" told a press conference in Beijing Sunday: "We have realized how sincere the mainland has been in inviting us to every corner of the Forbidden City."

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