Exhibition "Russia and China: A Dialogue Spanning Centuries"

About exhibition

The museum is opening a large-scale exhibition project that will showcase the most striking examples of Chinese history and culture from its collections. The museum's holdings include works of Chinese art, ritual objects, and exhibits related to diplomatic missions and trade, as well as education and medicine. A significant part of this collection consists of books and woodblock prints. The exhibition presents about 200 exhibits, some of which will be shown for the first time. Among them are tun tsao zhi — the so-called Chinese export miniatures. In 2024 they returned to the museum's holdings after an extensive restoration carried out at the Laboratory for Scientific Restoration and Conservation of Works on Paper of the State Hermitage Museum. Visitors will learn about missionary activity and the founding of the "Mungal School", scientific expeditions of VSOIRGO, the merchant community of Irkutsk and Russo-Chinese trade, as well as the education system of the PRC and relations between China and Russia in the 20th century. Traditional Chinese arts and crafts will be shown separately, such as wood and bone carving, bronze casting and cloisonné enamels, the famous Chinese porcelain, and silk embroidery. The exhibition also highlights China's graphic heritage. Visitors will see printed nianhua woodblock prints (literally "New Year picture").