Pictured: Two Ming Dynasty pottery figurines in the Shanghai Museum official map
Today, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage hosted a ceremony for the donation of cultural relics into the Collection at the Shanghai Museum. Ms. Suzanne Flatus of California, USA donated two Ming Dynasty pottery figurines from China to the Shanghai Museum. In the special exhibition "Thousands of Yixiang - Special Exhibition of Ming Dynasty Colored Glazed Pottery Figurines" that opened today, these two reflex cultural relics made their debut after returning to their homeland, and were exhibited at the same time as the pottery of the Ming Dynasty Colored Glazed Guard Team in the Collection of the Shanghai Museum. The two groups of cultural relics witnessed a good story of fate with cultural relics as the link and art as the bridge.
In 1983, to celebrate the sistership between Shanghai and San Francisco, the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco held "Shanghai Museum Collections - 6,000 Years of Chinese Art Exhibition", which impressed local audiences with a set of honor guard figurines. Her grandfather practiced medicine in China in the early 20th century, and after a Chinese patient was cured, she gave him two clay figurines as a token of gratitude, and then her grandfather returned to the United States with this object, and the whole story became an unforgettable mark of her childhood. Suzanne did not expect that many years later, she would see similar clay figurines in an exhibition of ancient Chinese art in San Francisco, and she could not help but feel a lot of emotions. Nearly 40 years later, Suzanne contacted the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco and offered to donate the two figurines to the Shanghai Museum to return them to her hometown. She said on the Internet that it was a great honor to return the two figurines to the people of Chinese. The separation of the two terracotta figurines has witnessed a hundred years of history and inspired people to be friendly, respect each other, and help each other. Admiring China's beautiful cultural and artistic achievements, she decided to return it to her homeland and return it to the people of Chinese, "not because of money or politics, but because of the power of love and respect for the people of Chinese."
Pictured: Ms. Suzanne
Recently, the Shanghai Museum completed the donation process of returned cultural relics and restored them, and organized experts to carry out physical appraisal to confirm that the two pottery figurines are Ming Dynasty funerary tools, which are precious physical materials for studying the ancient Chinese tomb system and pottery history, have important collection value, and are determined to be third-class cultural relics, and the pottery figurines should come from the tombs of Chinese stolen nobles. The two cultural relics are the same as the tire quality and low-temperature lead glaze applied to the surface of a set of 66 Ming Dynasty pottery figurines collected by the Shanghai Museum, and the shape and production style are very similar, especially with the 7 pointed hat figurines, which should be works of the same period and the same region. Shangbo experts pointed out that in the Ming Dynasty, a scaled-down version of the funeral honor guard was more popular, and archaeological excavations often saw a combination of colorful glazed pottery figurines, mostly unearthed in the tombs of the kings and high-ranking officials, that is, the so-called "ritual of seeing life", so that the deceased people continued to enjoy the life of the magnate of the high-ranking official Houlu. The firing of pottery ceremonial guards predates the late 15th century and is an important physical material for the study of the ancient Chinese burial system and the history of pottery making.
The Shanghai Museum carefully prepared the "Thousands of Images - Special Exhibition of Ming Dynasty Colored Glazed Pottery Figurines", and exhibited the two donated pottery figurines together with the Ming Dynasty color glazed ceremony guards in the collection of the Museum in San Francisco that year, and then composed a good story, exhibiting a total of 68 cultural relics.
Pictured: Official picture of the Shanghai Museum's pottery figurines and honor guard
Guan Qiang, deputy director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, attended the ceremony and delivered a speech at the Beijing venue, Ms. Susanna's righteous act of returning the pottery figurines to the chinese homeland showed an admirable and noble character, showed the friendship of ordinary Americans for the Chinese people, highlighted the "true value of art" contained in the cultural relics themselves, and also expressed the common aspiration of the people of all countries to work together to protect the cultural heritage of mankind, which will surely lead more people from all walks of life to pay attention to and support the recovery and return of lost cultural relics, and promote the return of more lost cultural relics. China is willing to work with the international community to jointly safeguard the achievements of human civilization, promote exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations, and make unremitting efforts to practice the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind.
Today, the responsible comrades of the relevant departments of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage and the relevant departments of the Chinese Consulate General in San Francisco attended the donation ceremony online. Relevant responsible comrades of Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Cultural Heritage, Shanghai Municipal Foreign Affairs Office and Shanghai Museum attended the ceremony and visited the exhibition. The exhibition runs until January 9, 2022.
(Xinmin Evening News reporter Le Mengrong)