A glimpse of Chinese cultural relics in foreign museums

France

[File photo of Chinese cultural relics in the Guimet Museum]

More than 2.6 million Chinese cultural relics are scattered in a variety of French museums and libraries. Similar to Britain, they were mainly plundered illegally during the colonial era at the end of the 19th century.

The Louvre Museum owns more than 30,000 Chinese cultural relics. At the Guimet Museum, or the National Museum of Asian Art, half of its collections, mainly precious porcelains, are from China.

In addition, the National Library of France keeps more than 10,000 frescoes and documents from Dunhuang, including three unique Tang Dynasty rubbings.