Hong Kong Palace Museum hints at content of its first exhibitions by posting image of painting Five Oxen, a grade 1 Chinese national treasure

Museum’s director stresses it won’t house touring exhibitions from Beijing, but pick from its collection and show works in a way Hong Kong people can relate to

Art history experts voice hope for museum and stress the importance of its values, which Ng sums up as having a global perspective on Chinese cultural history

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Detail from China’s oldest surviving paper painting, Five Oxen (detail), which the Hong Kong Palace Museum is using in publicity about its first exhibitions in 2022. It won’t say if the grade-one national treasure will be among the first 800 exhibits lent by The Palace Museum in Beijing. Photo: The Palace Museum

Published: 7:15am, 26 Nov 2020Updated: 7:32am, 26 Nov 2020

The Hong Kong Palace Museum (HKPM) is keeping quiet about the precise content of its opening exhibitions. But this week, the appearance of an image on its website has raised hopes that its namesake in Beijing will allow some of its best-known pieces to travel to the new institution when it opens in June 2022.

Five Oxen, owned by The Palace Museum in Beijing, is believed to be the earliest surviving paper painting in China and is traditionally attributed to the Tan -dynasty politician and painter Han Huang (723-787).

Hong Kong features briefly in the long history of the playful and unusual portrait of hefty bovines. After Anglo-French forces looted it from the Forbidden City in 1900, it resurfaced 50 years later at a Hong Kong auction, where it was reacquired by The Palace Museum.

The HKPM refuses to say whether the painting is coming to Hong Kong, and says merely that the “grade 1” national treasure and other art it is using for publicity purposes, such as an early equestrian portrait of Qing Emperor Qianlong by Giuseppe Castiglione, are indicative of “the types and quality” of the 800 exhibits it will borrow from Beijing.

The Qianlong Emperor in Ceremonial Armour on Horseback by Giuseppe Castiglione, 1739. Hanging scroll, ink and colour on silk. Photo: The Palace Museum

The HKPM has no collection of its own, nor any money to acquire one. A donation policy is being drafted so it can vet gifts in the future. Talks are also under way for collaboration with international museums.