The Shanghai Museum is a municipal public

museum A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or Preservation (library and archive), preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private colle ...

of ancient

Chinese art Chinese art is visual art that originated in or is practiced in China, Greater China or by Chinese artists. Art created by Chinese residing outside of China can also be considered a part of Chinese art when it is based on or draws on Chine ...

, situated on the

People's Square People's, branded as ''People's ViennaLine'' until May 2018, and legally ''Altenrhein Luftfahrt GmbH'', is an Austro- Swiss airline headquartered in Vienna, Austria. It operates scheduled and charter passenger flights mainly from its base at ...

in the Huangpu District of

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

, China. It is funded by th
Shanghai Municipal Culture and Tourism Bureau
Rebuilt at its current location in 1996, it is famous for its large collection of rare cultural pieces.

History

The museum was founded in 1952 and was first open to the public in the former Shanghai Racecourse club house, now at 325 West

Nanjing Road Nanjing Road (; Shanghainese: ''Noecin Lu'') is a road in Shanghai, the eastern part of which is the main shopping district of Shanghai. It is one of the world's busiest shopping streets, along with Fifth Avenue, Oxford Street, Orchard Road, T ...

. The founding collections came principally from three sources: a batch of artifacts gathered by the Communist 3rd Field Army during the civil war from accidental finds and confiscations of private property and brought to Shanghai upon the Communists' conquest of the city; artifacts confiscated by the customs service; items sold by private collectors due to political pressure during political purges and purchased by the government. The former Shanghai Municipal Museum was also merged into the new Shanghai Museum. In the next few years, the museum's collections were further enriched from other private and institutional collections in Shanghai, including the collection of the former Shanghai Museum of the

Royal Asiatic Society The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, commonly known as the Royal Asiatic Society, was established, according to its royal charter of 11 August 1824, to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the encourag ...

, which were moved to the museum as "foreign" institutions gradually left the city in the 1950s. In 1959 the museum moved into the Zhonghui Building at 16 South Henan Road, which housed insurance companies and bank offices. During the metal-gathering campaign of the

Great Leap Forward The Great Leap Forward was an industrialization campaign within China from 1958 to 1962, led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Party Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to transform the country from an agrarian society into an indu ...

, the Shanghai Museum participated in rescuing bronzeware from metal that had been confiscated or donated and were sent to be melted down. Before the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a Social movement, sociopolitical movement in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his de ...

, a tradition formed whereby Shanghai's wealthy collectors would make annual donations to the museum. The museum's work largely halted as a result of the Cultural Revolution. After the end of the revolution, as one of China's most important museums, the collections have continued to be enriched with the fruit of donations, government purchases, and important finds from archaeological excavations. The growth of its collections put enormous pressure on the cramped premises. For his role in ensuring a large, purpose-built home, it is said that Shanghai Museum owes much of its current existence to Ma Chengyuan, its director from 1985 until his retirement in 1999. When a new museum was omitted from Shanghai's five-year reconstruction plan in 1992, Ma lobbied Mayor Huang Ju for its rebuilding. After seeing the dilapidated rooms of the Zhonghui Building, Huang agreed to allocate a prime site on the

, but the museum had to raise its own building funds. Ma raised US$25 million by leasing the old building to a Hong Kong developer. He also made many trips abroad to solicit donations, mainly from the Shanghai diaspora who had fled to Hong Kong after the Communist revolution, raising another $10 million. The money still ran short, but he eventually won another 140 million yuan from the city government to complete the building. Construction of the current building started in August 1993. It was inaugurated on October 12, 1996 to wide acclaim. It is 29.5 meters high with five floors, covering a total area of 39,200 m². Designed by local architect Xing Tonghe, the building is designed in the shape of an ancient bronze cooking vessel called a '' ding''. It is said that the inspiration for the design was specifically provided by the Da Ke ding, now on exhibit in the museum. The building has a round top and a square base, symbolizing the ancient Chinese perception of the world as "round sky, square earth" ().

Collections

The museum has a collection of over 120,000 pieces, including

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloid ...

ceramic A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant, and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcela ...

calligraphy Calligraphy () is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instruments. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "the art of giving form to signs in an e ...

furniture Furniture refers to objects intended to support various human activities such as seating (e.g., Stool (seat), stools, chairs, and sofas), eating (table (furniture), tables), storing items, working, and sleeping (e.g., beds and hammocks). Furnitur ...

jade Jade is an umbrella term for two different types of decorative rocks used for jewelry or Ornament (art), ornaments. Jade is often referred to by either of two different silicate mineral names: nephrite (a silicate of calcium and magnesium in t ...

s, ancient

coin A coin is a small object, usually round and flat, used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by ...

painting Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

s, seals,

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

s, minority art and foreign art. The Shanghai Museum houses several items of national importance, including one of three extant specimens of a "transparent" bronze mirror from the

Han dynasty The Han dynasty was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC9 AD, 25–220 AD) established by Liu Bang and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–206 BC ...

Galleries

It has eleven galleries and three special temporary exhibition halls. The permanent galleries are: * Gallery of Ancient Chinese Bronze * Gallery of Ancient Chinese

Sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

* Gallery of Ancient

Chinese Ceramics Chinese ceramics are one of the most significant forms of Chinese art and ceramics globally. They range from construction materials such as bricks and tiles, to hand-built pottery vessels fired in bonfires or kilns, to the sophisticated Chinese ...

* Gallery of Ancient Chinese

Jade Jade is an umbrella term for two different types of decorative rocks used for jewelry or Ornament (art), ornaments. Jade is often referred to by either of two different silicate mineral names: nephrite (a silicate of calcium and magnesium in t ...

s * Gallery of Ancient Chinese Paintings * Gallery of Ancient

Chinese Calligraphy Chinese calligraphy is the writing of Chinese characters as an art form, combining purely Visual arts, visual art and interpretation of the literary meaning. This type of expression has been widely practiced in China and has been generally held ...

* Gallery of Ancient Chinese Seals * Gallery of Ancient Chinese

Numismatics Numismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, medals, and related objects. Specialists, known as numismatists, are often characterized as students or collectors of coins, but the discipline also inclu ...

* Gallery of Chinese furniture in Ming and

Qing The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...

dynasties * Gallery of Arts and Crafts by Chinese Minorities File:You with zigzag thunder pattern.jpg,

You In Modern English, the word "''you''" is the second-person pronoun. It is grammatically plural, and was historically used only for the dative case, but in most modern dialects is used for all cases and numbers. History ''You'' comes from ...

with zigzag thunder pattern, early

Zhou dynasty The Zhou dynasty ( ) was a royal dynasty of China that existed for 789 years from until 256 BC, the longest span of any dynasty in Chinese history. During the Western Zhou period (771 BC), the royal house, surnamed Ji, had military ...

File:上海博物馆藏汝窑青瓷.JPG,

Ru ware Ru ware, Ju ware, or "Ru official ware" () is a famous and extremely rare type of Chinese pottery from the Song dynasty, produced for the imperial court for a brief period around 1100. Fewer than 100 complete pieces survive, though there are ...

porcelain wares from the

Northern Song dynasty The Song dynasty ( ) was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Ten Kingdoms, endin ...

File:上海博物馆藏明式家具.JPG, Ming dynasty style furniture and room arrangement File:Tibetalian's mask.JPG, Colour lacquered ''Tiaoshen'' () Mask of Tibetan ethnicity File:Westerner on a camel.jpg,

Sogdia Sogdia () or Sogdiana was an ancient Iranian peoples, Iranian civilization between the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, and in present-day Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Sogdiana was also a province of the Achaemen ...

n on a camel, in '' Sancai'' style,

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...

File:Da Ke ding.jpg, Da Ke ding, from late

Western Zhou The Western Zhou ( zh, c=西周, p=Xīzhōu; 771 BC) was a period of Chinese history corresponding roughly to the first half of the Zhou dynasty. It began when King Wu of Zhou overthrew the Shang dynasty at the Battle of Muye and ended in 77 ...

File:Hunyuan Xizun.jpg, Xi

Zun The ''zun'' or ''yi'', used until the Song dynasty#Northern Song, 960–1127, Northern Song (960–1126) is a type of Chinese ritual bronzes, Chinese ritual bronze or ceramic wine vessel with a round or square vase-like form, sometimes in t ...

(), from the late

Spring and Autumn period The Spring and Autumn period () was a period in History of China, Chinese history corresponding roughly to the first half of the Eastern Zhou (256 BCE), characterized by the gradual erosion of royal power as local lords nominally subject t ...

File:Jinhousu Bianzhong.JPG,

Bianzhong ''Bianzhong'' () () is an ancient China, ancient Chinese List of traditional Chinese musical instruments, musical instrument consisting of a set of bronze bells, played melodically. China is the earliest country to manufacture and use musical chi ...

of Marquis Su of Jin, from Western Zhou File:Round fan with grass style writting by Zhao Ji.jpg, Calligraphy on a round fan by

Emperor Huizong of Song Emperor Huizong of Song (7 June 1082 – 4 June 1135), personal name Zhao Ji, was the eighth emperor of the Song dynasty of China and the penultimate emperor of the Northern Song dynasty. He was also a very well-known painter, poet and calli ...

Numismatic Collections

The museum has an important collection of ancient coins from the Silk Road, donated since 1991 by Linda and Roger Doo. The collection contains 1783 pieces from the Greeks to the Mongol Empire.Chen, Doo, and Wang, 2006

Selected publications

*''Ancient Chinese Ceramic Gallery The Shanghai Museum''. Shanghai: Shanghai Classics Publishing House, 1996. (English & Mandarin Chinese edition.)

References

Bibliography

Chen Xiejan, Doo R, Wang Yue (2006) Shanghai Museum's Collection of Ancient Coins from the Silk Road

External links

Shanghai Museum

China Museums
* {{Authority control Shanghai Museum 1952 establishments in Shanghai Museums established in 1952 Museums in Shanghai Huangpu District, Shanghai National first-grade museums of China Chinese numismatics