The Silk Road Antiquities from Hirayama Ikuo Collection, an exhibition co-organized by the National Museum of China (NMC) and Hirayama Ikuo Silk Road Museum of Japan, kicked off at NMC on November 27, 2018. The exhibition consists of four parts: “The Great Sea” – the Mediterranean Sea where civilizations converge; the “King of the Four Sides” – Mesopotamia and Iran; Zeus ? Buddha – Integration of Civilizations in Central Asia and India; and “Glimpse of the East” – the landscape of the eastern part of the Silk Road. 

This exhibition marks another milestone in the cooperation between NMC and the Japanese cultural and museum circles following the “Oriental Art of Painting - Chinese, Korean and Japanese Paintings of the 15th-19th Centuries” in 2016, and is also an important inbound exhibition for NMC this year. 

Mr. Hirayama Ikuo (1930-2009) was an established Japanese painter well-known for his Buddhist-themed paintings, and made outstanding contributions to the preservation and research of cultural relics in Dunhuang, as well as to the cultural exchanges between China and Japan. For this exhibition, Ms. Michiko Hirayama, his wife, brought his life-long treasures to NMC, and attended the opening ceremony in person despite her age. To pay tribute to Mr. Hirayama, Mr. Fan Jinshi, Honorary Director of Dunhuang Research Academy, Mr. Wang Xudong, Director of Dunhuang Research Academy, and Mr. Yokoi Yutaka, Japanese Ambassador to China, also attended the opening ceremony. 

The exhibition displays 200 pieces (sets) of treasures collected by Hirayama Ikuo Silk Road Museum. The vast majority of them, ranging from 2000 B.C. to the 8th century A.D., touch on the main ancient civilizations along the inland Silk Road from the Central Mediterranean and Central Asia to India. They fully demonstrate the exchanges and mutual learning between civilizations in Eurasia, and reveal the historical path of civilizations towards “a community with a shard future for mankind” in the process of integration, collision and interaction. 

“In this exhibition, we put one of treasures, the Terracotta Standing Camel of the Tang Dynasty the Tang Dynasty, together with the Dunhuang-themed watercolor sketch album of Mr. Hirayama Ikuo, opening a door for the visitors to get a glimpse of the civilizations along the Silk Road,” said Wang Chunfa, Director of NMC. 

The NNC is also a “cultural parlor” for China. In recent years, in response to the Belt and Road Initiative proposed by President Xi Jinping, NMC has committed itself to strengthening cultural exchanges and cooperation with the countries along the Silk Road and other countries in the world. 

“In the future, we will hold a series of exhibitions on the theme of the Silk Road to systematically display the civilizations and cultures of the countries along the Silk Road, and continue playing our part in strengthening international cooperation and building a pluralistic community with a shared future for mankind. I believe this exhibition will be a good start,” said Wang Chunfa. 

The exhibition will be open to the public at South Galleries S6 of NMC until February 14, 2019.