Chinese Art Treasures

May 28-August 13, 1961

Overview: An exhibition of 253 objects (231 in catalogue) was chosen from the Chinese National Palace Museum and the Chinese National Central Museum, Taichung, Taiwan, and sponsored by the government of the Republic of China. Included were 66 hanging paintings, 23 handscrolls, 5 albums with 76 paintings, 18 album leaves, 10 calligraphies, 4 textiles, 5 bronzes, 10 jades, 85 porcelains, 11 enamels, 8 lacquers, and 8 woodcarvings. The survey, covering some 3,000 years of Chinese culture and tradition, came from the former imperial collections at Beijing. The special installation, designed by Benjamin W. Lawless and Robert B. Widder, featured large sheets of Plexiglas for 31 of the most fragile hanging scrolls and 5 specially designed and constructed cases lined with silk shantung for horizontal scrolls. 6 cases were borrowed from the Freer Gallery of Art and 17 new cases from the Smithsonian's new Museum of History and Technology. An estimated 700,000 visitors saw the exhibition in 5 cities.

Attendance: 144,358 (78 days)

Location: Ground Floor, Central Gallery, Galleries G-7 through G-15

Catalogue: Chinese Art Treasures. Geneva, Switzerland: Editions d'Art Albert Skira, 1961.

Other venues:

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

September 15-November 1, 1961

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

December 1, 1961-January 15, 1962

Art Institute of Chicago

February 15-April 1, 1962

M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco

May 1-June 15, 1962

Search past exhibitions
Previous | Next (chronological list)