Date：2021-11-30 - 2022-01-09
Location：Shanghai Museum Lobby
Figurines have become an integral part of burial customs in ancient China since the pre-Qin period. These funeral objects, such as pottery and wooden figurines of the Warring States period, Emperor Qin's Terracotta Army, and sancai-glazed pottery figures of the Tang dynasty, were believed to provide the deceased with entertainment, service, and guardianship in the netherworld. In the Ming dynasty, ensembles of polychrome-glazed pottery figurines as miniature funeral processions were widely buried with the nobility and high-ranking officials so as to maintain their wealth and rank in the afterlife. The Shanghai Museum houses 66 pieces of polychrome-glazed pottery figurines of honor guards in procession from the Ming dynasty. This magnificent set of statuettes in the form of attendants, animals, and everyday objects has gained higher popularity through exhibitions in the United States, Spain, and Russia.
In 1983, the pottery funeral procession was exhibited in Treasures from the Shanghai Museum: 6000 Years of Chinese Art at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco to celebrate the Sister City relationship between Shanghai and San Francisco. Suzanne Fratus, a California resident whose grandfather, Dr. John Herbert Waite, had received two pottery figurines from a recovered patient during his medical practice in the early 1900s in China, was greatly impressed by the procession in miniature, which reminded Suzanne of her childhood connected to the gifted figurines. Her grandfather’s whole story was also kept lingering in Suzanne’s mind.
After nearly four decades, Suzanne contacted the Consulate-General of the People's Republic of China in San Francisco and expressed her wish to return the two figures to their rightful home with the Chinese people. In 2021, the National Cultural Heritage Administration designated the Shanghai Museum to receive these two figures. And recently with the full support of the National Cultural Heritage Administration and the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage, the Shanghai Museum has completed the relevant procedure of receiving these two artifacts. Despite unprecedented obstacles brought by the COVID-19 pandemic during the past year, the Shanghai Museum has successfully embraced the year with Stride Towards a Niu Year: China-Korea Exchange Exhibition Celebrating the Year of the Ox and now holds The Vibrant World in Miniature: Polychrome-glazed Pottery Figurines of the Ming Dynasty to bid farewell to the old and usher in the new. The homecoming of the two figures also reflects a shared respect from all mankind for cultural heritage and brings fortune to the coming New Year.
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