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Chinese artifacts

Chinese artifacts
The latest news, analysis and opinion on Chinese artifacts. In-depth analysis, industry insights and expert opinion.
Terracotta statues from the Western Han dynasty (206BC-AD9) that were unearthed in China’s Shaanxi province in 1965 are displayed in an exhibition in 2022, part of a series of special exhibitions launched by the National Museum of China to celebrate its 110th anniversary. Photo: Photo: Robert Ng
Chinese culture

How China’s Han dynasty forged a unified cultural and national identity

Knowledge spread and the arts flourished during this golden age of Chinese history, as the country opened up to international trade.

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Taiwan

How National Palace Museum’s anniversary became a Taiwan identity battleground

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From our archives

When the Terracotta Army came to Hong Kong

Art

How a Hong Kong seal carver keeps an ancient Chinese art alive

Third-generation seal engraver Yam Man-hong talks about preserving the craft at his tiny Hong Kong stall, and keeping up with the times.

Yam Man-hong, a stone seal carver at Kingstone Engraving in Hong Kong. Photo: Dickson Lee
Architecture and design

Netflix documentary unearths mysteries of China’s terracotta army

Mysteries of the Terracotta Warriors, a documentary on Netflix, delves into the construction and excavation of the vast mausoleum Qin Shi Huang, the country’s first emperor, ordered built to house his tomb.

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Art

Chinese museums’ loan of art and artefacts to US counterpart is a landmark

An exhibition at the Cleveland Museum of Art will tell the story of China’s Jiangnan region through ancient artefacts from Chinese institutions, in an instance of cultural exchange amid ongoing Sino-US tensions.

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Britain

British police recover stolen Ming dynasty vase worth US$2.5 million

London police and Swiss authorities smashed a criminal ring believed to have stolen the artefact from a Geneva museum in 2019.

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The Chinese vase dates back to the Yongle period of the Ming dynasty. Photo: Metropolitan Police via AP
Ancient China

Video | Chinese Bodhisattva statue from 12th century found in France

Art

Inside Joseph Hotung’s long-hidden private Chinese art collection

While much of Joseph Hotung’s collection of Chinese jades and Yuan and Ming dynasty porcelains is already on display, now his private cache is coming to light at Sotheby’s auctions.

Archaeology and palaeontology

Video | The mysterious tomb of Emperor Wen

The mysterious tomb of Han dynasty Emperor Wen among China’s top 10 archaeological finds
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Archaeology and palaeontology

House in long-gone Utah town tells story of early Chinese rail workers’ lives

A 150-year-old house unearthed in Utah yielded thousands of artefacts illuminating the Chinese contribution to the building America’s railways.

The remnants of an old stretch of America’s transcontinental railroad near Terrace, Utah. Photo: Steve Dudrow
China society

The delicate and dying art of fixing ancient Chinese books by hand

There are more than 50 million antique books in China, but only a handful of people are trained to repair them.

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Stanley Ho

Stanley Ho donation returns stolen bronze horse head to Beijing’s Old Summer Palace

The piece is one of 12 sculptures representing the Chinese zodiac stolen from the palace during the Second Opium War’s Anglo-French invasion.

Art

What will Hong Kong Palace Museum show? Here’s a hint

Publicity for the first exhibitions at the Hong Kong Palace Museum in 2022 strongly suggests that national treasures rarely shown in public will feature heavily among the 800 exhibits loaned by its namesake in Beijing.

Detail from China’s oldest surviving paper painting, Five Oxen (detail), which the Hong Kong Palace Museum is using in publicity about its first exhibitions in 2022. It won’t say if the grade-one national treasure will be among the first 800 exhibits lent by The Palace Museum in Beijing. Photo: The Palace Museum
Art

Inside China’s porcelain capital, 2,000 years and still going strong

Jingdezhen, in Jiangxi province, has been producing exquisite handmade porcelain artworks for two millennia, but can its ancient techniques compete in a changing market?

An artisan at work in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province. Photo: Zigor Aldama
Coronavirus pandemic

Amid pandemic, Chinese people observe Ching Ming Festival online

With access to cemeteries limited due to the coronavirus pandemic, many people are opting for online tomb-sweeping services or setting up virtual shrines for their loved ones on sites such as waheaven.com.

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Investing

Hong Kong art dealers turn to the internet to find buyers

Art dealers and galleries employ digital tools to boost sagging fortunes of the once vibrant art market, with one dealer saying ‘this is the way forward’

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Fashion

Yes, a dress really can save the world, says a 62-year-old artist

Would you wear a dress made out of plastic church models, anti-pollution masks, or inflatable doves? Chinese artist Kong Ning does, as a way of highlighting pressing issues such as pollution and world peace.

Kong Ning in a dress made of blue pinwheels in Beijing in 2017. She created this dress in the hope the wheels would blow the smog away.
Chinese culture

A salute to women: imperial beauty in China, Japan explored

Crowning Glory exhibition explores how women were able to express themselves despite being closeted in their quarters according to Confucian custom.The earliest items on display in the exhibition date back to the 7th century.

TV shows and streaming video

Antiquities to apps: BBC series on China’s Greatest Treasures

New series hosted by art critic and BBC host Alastair Sooke looks at how important works of Chinese art still influence the nation today, from its food to the country’s links with the rest of the world.

Style Edit

STYLE Edit: Would you pay HK$25 million for this painting?

Open season for modern and traditional Asian art collectors as 1,800 lots, valued at HK$780 million, go under the hammer at the China Guardian Hong Kong Autumn Auctions 2019

Nara Yoshimoto’s ethereal pop art work Midnight Vampire is estimated to sell for HK$18 to HK$25 million at the China Guardian Hong Kong Autumn Auction.
Chinese culture

Western museums hoarding Chinese relics have run out of excuses

China’s scientific advances mean the claim that ancient artefacts are best preserved in the West no longer holds water.

Collector Liu Yiqian shows the Meiyintang “chicken cup” from the Ming dynasty that he bought at a Sotheby's action in July 2014. Photo: AP
Art

Collector asks: ‘Where are Xi Jinping’s works of calligraphy?’

Chi Wang, whose Nationalist general father instilled in him a deep appreciation for the art form, explains how the true value of Chinese art is much more than the auction price.

Chinese culture

Opinion | Chinese culture will flourish when there is freedom of expression

Chinese history

Beijing and Taipei National Palace Museums – a tale of two legacies

The mid-century scramble to stop art and artefacts falling into the wrong hands saw the collection splinter, with Nationalists transporting their treasures to Taiwan and the People’s Republic allowing Forbidden City to preserve posterity.

China’s competing legacies on show at National Palace Museums in Beijing and Taipei
Chinese history

Ruins of 2,000-year-old coin workshop found in central China

Archaeologists discover fragments of ceramic moulds, copper coins and a kiln site where an ancient government office once stood in Henan province.

Archaeologists found fragments of ceramic coin moulds at the site when they were carrying out repairs after heavy rain in late 2017. Photo: Handout
China society

Was ancient statue pulled from Sotheby’s stolen from China?

China society

China’s technicolour Buddha joins botched repairs wall of shame

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