The Shanghai Museum (Ch:上海博物館) is a museum of ancient Chinese art, situated on the People's Square in the Huangpu District of Shanghai, People's Republic of China.

History

• 1952: Museum founded and first open to the public in the building previously of the horseracing club at 325 W. Nanjing Road.
• 1959: Museum moved into the former Zhonghui Building at 16 S. Henan Road.
• 1992: Museum allocated a piece of land on People's Square by the Shanghai municipal government, as its new site.

Current building

Construction of the current building started in August 1993. It was inaugurated in October 12, 1996. It is 29.5 meters high with five floors, covering a total area of 39,200 sqm. Designed by a local architect, the new museum building has a unique shape of round top and a square base, symbolising the ancient Chinese perception of the world as "round sky, square earth".

Collections

The museum has a collection of over 120,000 pieces, including bronze, ceramics, calligraphy, furniture, jades, numismatics, paintings, seals, sculptures, minority art and foreign art. It has eleven galleries and three special temporary exhibition halls. Its main galleries are:

• Gallery of Ancient Chinese Bronze
• Gallery of Ancient Chinese Sculpture
• Gallery of Ancient Chinese Ceramics
• Gallery of Ancient Chinese Jades
• Gallery of Ancient Chinese Paintings
• Gallery of Ancient Chinese Calligraphy
• Gallery of Ancient Chinese Seals
• Gallery of Ancient Chinese Numismatics
• Gallery of Chinese Furniture in Ming and Qing Dynasty
• Gallery of Arts and Crafts by Chinese Minorities

Jar with modeled figurines, Kingdom of Wu, 222-280 CE.

Jar of the Western Jin, with Buddhist figures, 265-317 CE.

Westerner on a camel (detail). Tang Dynasty.

Tang Dynasty jar.

External link

• Shanghai Museum