A popular exhibit at the Chimei Museum in Tainan featuring a hologram of Queen Elizabeth II has been well received by visitors, and drew even larger crowds following her passing on Thursday, the museum said on Friday.
The exhibit, which features Equanimity — the first holographic portrait of the queen, commissioned to Canadian artist Chris Levine in 2004 by the Jersey Heritage Trust — is on loan from the UK’s National Portrait Gallery, and is on display in Taiwan for the first time.
The hologram was made by having a camera move along a track while taking a series of 200 stills of the queen.
Photo: Wu Chun-feng, Taipei Times
The portrait is on a worldwide tour, with the last stop being Taiwan, where large crowds have appeared daily to see the work since it arrived for a two-week loan, the museum said.
In the portrait, the queen is seen wearing the George IV State Diadem — a diamond crown made for King George IV in 1820 — as well as the dress she wore for her coronation in 1953.
Chimei said it had planned the exhibit to coincide with the 70th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s accession to the throne.
Meanwhile, a private collector is displaying 13 commemorative coins issued by British authorities on the queen’s 80th birthday in 2006.
Wang Kao-jung (王高榮), owner of Tainan-based antiques dealer Soapberry, said he bought the coins from another private collector several years ago.
“The coins are very rare in Taiwan, so I wanted to give people the chance to see them” given the current interest in the queen, he said.
Wang — who said he enjoys collecting ancient cultural relics, cars, professional baseball cards, dolls, and various commemorative coins — has put the Queen Elizabeth II coins on display at Soapberry.
The coins were issued with a booklet, which is also being shown, he said.
Also on display are silver coins featuring the queen minted by the Bank of Taiwan from 2009 to 2014 under commission by the government of Tuvalu, he said.
“The Tuvaluan coins feature the queen because the country was administered by the British as part of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony from 1916 to 1975,” he said.
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