Date：2025-09-26 - 2025-11-23
Location：The Shanghai Museum on People's Square, No.2 Exhibition Hall (2F)
Organizers：The Shanghai Museum, Tokyo National Museum
Lacquerware stands not only as a crown jewel of Chinese civilization but also as a silent witness to the cultural exchanges across East Asia. This exhibition, "When Ruby Vies with Emerald: Exquisite Lacquer of the Song, Yuan, and Ming Dynasties", brings together over a hundred treasures, with its primary focus on treasures passed down over generations in Japan, complemented by a selection of lacquerware unearthed in China. Together, they form a magnificent time corridor of artistic achievement.
The exhibition unfolds across six themes: (1) Plain Lacquer with Gentle Glow, (2) Carved Lacquer with Layered Motifs, (3) Magnificence Outlined in Gold, (4) Brilliance Condensed in Luster, (5) Echoes from Dust, and (6) Return of the Classic. The items on loan from Japanese institutions are largely renowned masterpieces with well-documented provenance. Some are collected in prestigious Japanese temples, some recorded in historical texts such as the Imperial Household Inventories of Japan, and others designated as Japan's Important Cultural Properties. As dazzling achievements of Chinese craftsmanship at its peak, these works serve as cultural messengers sojourning in Japan's aesthetic landscape.
Equally noteworthy are the excavated treasures housed in museums across China. Highlights include mother-of-pearl-inlaid pieces from the late Tang to the Five Dynasties, as well as Song rarities that have been found only in historical records and archaeological finds. As "first-hand materials", they shine with the lacquerware preserved in Japanese institutions, confirming the existence of such exquisite craftsmanship and offering a more comprehensive and objective presentation of the technical brilliance and historical significance of lacquer art during the Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties.
We hope that, amidst the gleam of ruby and the shimmer of emerald, this exhibition will inspire admiration for the Chinese people's vigorous pursuit of beauty, evoke a sense of shared cultural identity that transcends mountains and seas, invite appreciation of the timeless spirit of Chinese civilization embodied in the wonderful details of these masterpieces, and celebrate the enduring radiance of Chinese lacquerware as a testament to Eastern wisdom.
