Palace Museum rides high with top national treasures

The Hong Kong Palace Museum will host an exhibition of Chinese horse paintings from Friday until March 17 next year, featuring 76 works from the Palace Museum in Beijing, including 15 grade-one national treasures. The paintings, to be shown in four rotations, showcase nearly 100 works by more than 60 renowned artists from as early as the Yuan dynasty to the 20th century. More than 20 paintings and calligraphic works will feature in each rotation, with most of the works put on display for about three months to protect the light-sensitive paper and silk materials they were crafted on. "Three horses" – a grade-one national treasure that was painted in the 14th century – will be on display for just one month to preserve the artwork. Daisy Wang, the deputy director in charge of curatorial, collection and programming, said visitors would have to rush if they wanted to see this particular exhibit. "This painting will be returned to the storage of the Forbidden City where it will sleep for three years, so even if you travelled to Beijing to see the Forbidden City, you won't be able to see it because we want to make sure that it gets enough rest so that our descendants can continue to see it," Wang said. The exhibition will allow visitors to, for the first time ever, create an interactive AI-assisted work in the styles of three painters from China, France and Italy. It will also feature multimedia installations, such as an animation video gallery and interactive poetry games. Learning workshops, guided tours and talks related to the exhibition will also be organised. Edited by Aaron Tam