The Acropolis Museum is launching, on 28 October, the exhibition project “Treasures from the Shanghai Museum” by hosting two works – a bronze pan of Zi Zhong Jiang (770 - late half 7th century BC) and the hand scroll painting "Travelling along the Clear River" (17th century).

A similar action will take place at the Shanghai Museum (from 11 January to 8 April, 2018) with the presentation of two Acropolis Museum masterworks, a marble statue of the Archaic Kore 670 (520-510 BC) and a red-figured lekane lid with a Dionysian scene (350-325 BC). These are the first in a series of actions to be undertaken in the context of a cultural exchanges agreement between the two Museums.

The first artwork to be hosted at the Acropolis Museum as part of the “Treasures from the Shanghai Museum” is a bronze ceremonial pan of the 7th century B.C. made for Princess Zi Zhong Jiang, which served as a water vessel for hand washing before rites and banquets. The innovative decoration of the utensil with animal patterns and figurines, unique to the bronze utensils of the time, makes this artwork a truly rare masterpiece of Chinese craftsmanship.

The second artwork is an illustrated hand scroll painting by Chinese painter Wu Hong of the Qing Dynasty (17th century AD) entitled “Traveling along the Clear River”. The scroll depicts a peaceful landscape with mountains, rivers, farmhouses, kiosks, bridges, boats and human forms among them, describing an ideal world or paradise that in Chinese is called shi-wai-tao-yuan (世外桃源). The subtlety and precision of the artist's touch add value to this work, dominated by the realistic depiction of the landscape.
The two objects will be on display in ground floor foyer of the Acropolis Museum from 28 October, 2017 to 30 April, 2018, where, in addition, visitors may watch an explanatory video. An information kit of the exhibition is available free of charge in Chinese, English and Greek, while the full catalogue of the exhibition project in the three languages is sold at the Museum’s shop.

The Shanghai Museum
The Shanghai Museum was founded in 1952 to house works of ancient Chinese art. One hundred and forty thousand objects, out of the one million artworks that make up its collections, have been described as national treasures. The collections of the Shanghai Museum cover a wide range from the Neolithic to the early 20th century art and twenty categories of exhibits, such as bronze ceramics and works of calligraphy, paintings, jade and ivory artworks, vessels made of bamboo and lacquered wood, stamps, coins, as well as artworks of ethnic minorities. The collections of bronze, ceramics, calligraphy and painting are among the best in the world. Masterpieces and treasures of the Museum have been presented in many countries around the world, while the Museum itself attracts more than two million visitors every year.