The National Palace Museum’s treasured Jadeite Cabbage with Insects (翠玉白菜) and more than 100 other works from the museum’s collection are to be displayed in the Czech Republic for the first time starting in September, the museum said in a statement yesterday.
The exhibition, “100 objects, 100 stories: Treasures from the National Palace Museum,” is to run from Sept. 11 to Dec. 31 at the National Museum in Prague.
It would be the first time that one of the museum’s most iconic pieces — Jadeite Cabbage with Insects, a carved jadeite head of napa cabbage with a locust and katydid camouflaged in the leaves dating back to the Qing dynasty (between 1644 and 1911) — has been showcased overseas since appearing at the Tokyo National Museum in 2014 and the first time the museum’s works have ever been shown in the Czech Republic.
Photo courtesy of the National Palace Museum
Another iconic piece Along the River During the Qingming Festival (清明上河圖), a handscroll painting depicting the daily life and landscape of Bianjing, the capital of the Northern Song period (between 960 and 1127), is also on exhibit.
The National Palace Museum described the overseas exhibition as a significant part of its centennial celebrations and said it was aimed at “resonating with the European public” through the works’ artistic styles and stories.
It is also hoping to introduce European audiences to the “rich and diverse cultural heritage of Taiwan,” echoing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture’s “Taiwan Culture in Europe 2025” campaign, it said.
Earlier this month, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said that after the exhibition in the Czech Republic, the museum in November would exhibit its collection in France.
The jadeite cabbage is currently on display in Room 302 of the National Palace Museum’s Northern Branch, but would be replaced with two items from the “cabbage collection” on Friday, the museum said.
One of these items is the Mini Jadeite Cabbage (翠玉小白菜), intricately carved to capture the essence of a real cabbage, with a mantis perched on the stalk highlighting coexistence in nature.
The other piece is the Jadeite Cabbage-shaped Flower Holder (翠玉白菜花插), which was carved with techniques believed to be from the 18th to 19th century, and is triangular in shape and hollow inside.
The National Palace Museum and the National Museum in Prague signed an agreement to establish a sister museum relationship in September 2022, enabling the two sides to cooperate more closely on research and exhibition exchanges.
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
The number of pet cats in Taiwan surpassed that of pet dogs for the first time last year, reaching 1,742,033, a 32.8 percent increase from 2023, the Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday, citing a survey. By contrast, the number of pet dogs declined slightly by 1.2 percent over the same period to 1,462,528, the ministry said. Despite the shift, households with dogs still slightly outnumber those with cats by 1.2 percent. However, while the number of households with multiple dogs has remained relatively stable, households keeping more than two cats have increased, contributing to the overall rise in the feline population. The trend
LEVERAGE: China did not ‘need to fire a shot’ to deny Taiwan airspace over Africa when it owns ‘half the continent’s debt,’ a US official said, calling it economic warfare The EU has raised concerns about overflight rights following the delay of President William Lai’s (賴清德) planned state visit to the Kingdom of Eswatini after three African nations denied overflight clearance for his charter at the last minute. Taiwanese allies Paraguay and Saint Kitts and Nevis, as well as several US lawmakers and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) condemned China for allegedly pressuring the countries. Lai was scheduled to fly directly to Taiwan’s only African ally from yesterday to Sunday to celebrate the 40th anniversary of King Mswati III’s accession and his 58th birthday, but Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar suddenly revoked
RSS