Why is Shanghai Museum special?
As one of best museum in the world with ancient Chinese art, the Shanghai Museum houses over 120,000 historical and artistic treasures. Spend half day, if not, most of a day here to enjoy a chronological and stylistic tour of China's greatest artistic traditions, with bronzes, sculptures, ceramics, paintings, calligraphy, jades, coins, furniture and ethnic minority folk art.
Shanghai Museum Highlights
The design itself of the museum is an eye-attracting scene. It represents the traditional Chinese view of the universe that the earth is square under a round sky. Bronze ware, ceramics, calligraphy, Chinese painting and other art works make the museum a display of the splendid Chinese culture.
Bronze ware
The bronze wares in the museum are mainly from the famous collectors in Ming and Qing Dynasty. Also, a great many of them were unearthed after the 1930s. Da Ke tripod, measured 93.1 cm high and 201.5 kg, was an important bronze vessel for ceremony, symbolizing high social status and power of the owner. There were nearly 290 characters engraved on the inner wall, which were typical representative of bronze inscriptions during the mid and late Western Zhou dynasty.
Ceramics
The collection of ceramics in the museum gathers most of the essence in southeast China. The potteries of Liangzhu Culture which belongs to the prehistory era can be rarely found now. The collection of original celadon is also the special feature of the museum.
Among celadon from Yue kiln, Celadon begonia-shaped Bowl Yue Ware is unique. It is large and regular in shape, with an opening like a blooming crab-apple flower and a plump belly. The bowl was made from fine clay then evenly coated with bright yellowish celadon glaze.