National Palace Museum Treasure Jadeite Cabbage to Be Put on Display in Japan

 National Palace Museum Treasure Jadeite Cabbage to Be Put on Display in Japan

Source: All Taipei Newspapers

June 17, 2014

"Treasured Masterpieces From the National Palace Museum(國立故宮博物館),Taipei" will be exhibited in Japan this summer. Approximately 200 renowned treasures from the National Palace Museum's collection, including the Jadeite Cabbage with Insects (翠玉白菜), will be displayed for the first time at the Tokyo National Museum (June 24^th to July 10^th ), while the Meat-shaped Stone (肉形石) will be exhibited for two weeks at the Kyushu National Museum in September. This will be the first time for the two national treasures to be exhibited abroad. First Lady Chow Mei-ching (周美青), in her capacity as honorary head of the delegation, will attend the opening ceremony on June 24 and return to Taiwan on June 26.

The two most popular treasures have never left Taiwan since the ROC government relocated to Taipei in 1949, though the two treasures were put on display at the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts for three months at the end of 2003.   

According to the National Palace Museum, in exchange for loaning several of the National Palace Museum's most popular items, the two above-mentioned Japanese museums have agreed to jointly display 150 of their cultural artifacts, including 68 National Treasures and Important Cultural Properties, in Taiwan, in a reciprocal exhibition in 2016.

Moreover, the main reason the National Palace Museum agreed to hold the exhibition in Japan was that Japan's parliament (Diet) passed two pieces of legislation in 2011 to facilitate exhibitions of art objects that are borrowed from abroad. According to the Law Concerning Promotion of Exhibitions of Art Objects from Overseas, foreign-loaned cultural objects are immune from attachment, allowing Taiwan's treasures to be exhibited in Japan without fear of losing them to Mainland China, which considers the artifacts to be Chinese property. 

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