A glimpse of Chinese cultural relics in foreign museums

The United States

A Northern Song Dynasty copy of Ladies Preparing Silk, a famous painting by Zhang Xuan during the Tang Dynasty, is now kept in Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. [File photo]

One of the Chinese exhibition halls in the Metropolitan Museum of Art put huge ancient mural paintings and a statue of Bodhisattva on display. [File photo]

Seven museums in the United States are famous for their collections of Chinese cultural relics, including the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Fogg Art Museum of Harvard University, New York City Art Museum, the Penn Museum (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology), Freer Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

There are 10 exhibition halls for Chinese historic relics in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Among them, more than 5,000 ancient paintings are at a premium. At the Penn Museum, the Six Steeds of Zhao Mausoleum, six stone carvings of the favorite steeds of the second emperor in Tang Dynasty in his own mausoleum, are the most unique and valuable on display. At the Freer Gallery of Art, half of the collections are Chinese cultural relics, including paintings, calligraphy, Buddhist art works, jade articles and bronze vessels.

Many other institutions in the United States own ancient Chinese treasures or documents. The library of the University of Chicago keeps almost 400 kinds of rare ancient Chinese books. The Columbia University library has a collection of 15,000 Chinese genealogical trees.

The majority of Chinese historic relics in the United States were obtained illegally by smuggling overseas. In the last 30 years, about 2.3 million Chinese treasures were transported to the United States. Among them, 200,000 of the choicest goods were collected by museums in the country.