The world-renowned Shanghai Museum, a museum of ancient Chinese art, was established in December, 1952 at the West Nanjing Road which was once the club of the Shanghai horse race course. In 1959, it moved to 16 Henan South Road.

Shanghai Museum has the research departments of Chinese bronze, ceramics, paintings and calligraphy, and artifacts, and a scientific laboratory for preservation of cultural relics, with researchers and associate researchers over fifty in number.

With a collection of over 120,000 pieces of cultural relics in twelve categories, Shanghai Museum is especially famous for its treasures of bronzes, ceramics and paintings and calligraphy.

As for the scholarly research, Shanghai Museum has published over 80 special museum catalogues. Nineteen research subjects of the cultural relics preservation have won awards.

The new Shanghai Museum has set up ten special galleries of bronze, calligraphy, ceramics, furniture, jades, minority art, numismatics, paintings, sculptures, and seals, together with a special gallery of donated relics and three temporary exhibition halls.

Shanghai Museum has installed advanced security and fire alarm systems, educational services, a computerized library, an automation system. Besides this, we have facilities for multi-media guide, an information center, a High Definition Graphics system, an audio tour, the lecture room is equipped with a system of spontaneous interpretation. The library in the museum has 200,000 volumes of books in collection.

Gallery of Ancient Chinese Bronze, Gallery of Ancient Chinese Ceramics and Gallery of Ancient Chinese Sculpture in Shanghai Museum has been open to the public since December 30, 1995. By October 1996, the complete Shanghai Museum will be open to the public. We warmly welcome visitors from home and abroad to Shanghai Museum.

Gallery of Ancient Chinese Bronze shows about 440 pieces of various kinds of ancient Chinese bronzes, including the bronze wine vessel, food vessel, musical instrument, water vessel, weapon and some other vessels from the Xia Dynasty (ca, 21st century B.C.>to the Warring States Period (221 B.C.) The distinctively shaped and beautifully decorated bronzes, some with historic inscriptions, is an important mark of ancient Chinese civilization and a marvelous treasure of the Chinese cultural heritage respected highly in the world.

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Gallery of Ancient Chinese Calligraphy shows eminent personages' original handwritings. Chinese calligraphy can be traced back to Shang Dynasty and it matured in Dongzhou Dynasty. Official script was popular in Han Dynasty, while cursive script, regular script and running hand emerged during Weijing Period. The latter three reached the peak in Tang and Song Dynasty. All the later scripts were pattered after them and developed with their distinguished styles. About 100 essential pieces of calligraphy that are displayed here mirror the history of the art of Chinese handwriting.

Gallery of Ancient Chinese Ceramics displays over 500 pieces of various fine ceramics from the Neolithic times to the end of the Qing Dynasty. A large number of them are the high-quality products from famous porcelain making kilns, some have never been shown before and some are very rare in the whole world. This is comprehensive ceramics gallery introducing the Chinese ceramic history, the Chinese ceramic art, the connoisseurship knowledge of the Chinese ceramics, and the scientific researches on the Chinese ceramics.

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Gallery of Chinese Furniture in Ming and Qing Dynasty displays over 100 pieces of various styles of furniture made in the Ming and Qing Dynasty. Furniture made in Ming Dynasty is famous for simple modeling, gracious line and well-balanced scale; while furniture made in the Qing Dynasty is noted for their extravagant material, splendid decoration. There are also some models of valuable furniture and wooden buried warrior figure of Ming Dynasty unearthed in the area around Shanghai. In the gallery there is also a hall and a study room imitative of the style of that time.

Gallery of Arts and Crafts by Chinese Minority shows about 600 pieces of work of art, such as dress and personal adornment, dyed and woven embroidery, metal art ware, sculpture, ceramics, bamboo wares used by the minority. Different styles, remarkable color and creative conception embody the pursuit of happier life. All these form an essential part of Chinese tradition in the field of art.

Gallery of Ancient Chinese Coins shows the historical change and development of Chinese coins. The gallery displays about 7,000 pieces exhibits inclusive of bronze coins(which has the longest history), gold, silver, black copper, iron coins and paper money. At the same time, there are some foreign gold, silver, copper coins that were circulated widely in China. For the time being, this is the largest and most complete exhibition of Chinese coins.

Gallery of Ancient Chinese Paintings showcases about 140 pieces of masterpiece paintings, ranging famous from original paintings in Tang Dynasty, Song Dynasty and Yuan Dynasty to the masterpieces of Zhe School, Wumen School and Songjiang School in Ming Dynasty, four masters, four monks and Yangzhou School in the early period of Qing Dynasty and Haishang School at the end of Qing Dynasty. These works with varied styles and ingenuity mirror the tradition and evolution of Chinese culture. The decoration of the gallery embodies ancient architectural style and scholar's style.

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Gallery of Ancient Chinese Seals displays more than 500 pieces of seals that could be traced as far back as Zhou Dynasties and as late as Qing Dynasty. It is a fine selection of the 10,000 pieces of seals the museum houses. These differently styled signets reflects the long history of seals in China and embodies profound cultural sophistication of the nation.

Gallery of Ancient Chinese Sculpture presents 127 pieces of ancient Chinese stone, wood, clay, pottery and cast-bronze sculptures from the Warring States period to the Ming Dynasty. The whole gallery is divided into four sections with the Chinese Buddhist sculpture and figurine-modeling art as the main subject.

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Open Hours: 9:00--17:00
Free admission for students (groups):
Saturday: 17:00--19:00