Chinese Art Treasures
Skira | 1961 | ISBN: N/A | English | 294 pages | PDF | 28 MB

The Chinese Palace Museum's collection of objects of art is unique. Few other ancient civilizations of the world have handed down to posterity the masterpieces of their great artists in a single collection that is comparable in size and value. The formation of this famous court collection may be said to have started from the very beginning of the Southern Sung dynasty (1127-1279 A.D.). Miraculously, it survived the invading Mongols in 1276, the Manchus in 1644, and the fall of Peiping in China's disastrous foreign wars in 1860 and 1900. Though it inevitably suffered some losses in each upheaval, it has been in the main expanding continuously over the past eight hundred years. Its scope is comprehensive, with paintings, calligraphies, porcelains and bronzes as its dominant features. The fine quality of the objects included in the collection has set standards of evaluation for scholars and art experts alike. In the current exhibition many of the best items of the collection are presented to a foreign public for the first time