As the Chinese New Year approaches, more than 280 precious folk antiques belonging to various Chinese collectors in the world are being displayed in an exhibition in Shanghai.

The exhibits include various rare treasures such as the Tang Dynasty (A.D 618-A.D907) silver tri-colored glazed pottery Tang San Cai showing a female court attendant riding a horse, and intact official kiln potteries from the Chu Xiu palace and the Kangxi palace in the Qing Dynasty ( A.D 1616-A.D 1911). These treasures are valued at around ten million yuan each.

This exhibition has one of the most complete and exquisite collection of folk antiques in recent years. It has received the strong support of Chinese people from all over the world, with many individual collectors putting up many of their own high-quality collections.

The organizers collected altogether more than 280 rare antiques from Chinese collectors all over the world, which included official kiln pottery, common kiln pottery, the four treasures of learning (writing brush, ink stick, ink slab, and paper), bamboo and wooden tooth carvings, minor antiques, emerald ornaments and authentic painting and calligraphy.

Two of the rare treasures in the exhibition are State treasures. One is the Tang San Cai showing a female court attendant riding a horse. In the Tang Dynasty (A.D618-A.D 907) tri-colored glazed pottery was normally made with clay, but this one was made with silver and even appeared as a bright terra-cotta figure, which was extremely rare not just for ordinary collectors, but also for specialized collections.

Another one is the tri-colored pottery with a dragon pattern made in the Chu Xiu palace from the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty (A.D 1616-A.D1911). In the Qing Dynasty when tri-colored pottery was extraordinarily rare, this handiwork is of extremely fine quality and represents one of the superior products from the official kilns of the Kang Xi palace.

In addition, the Chu Xiu palace has generally been regarded as Empress Cixi's imperial palace, and the pottery from the Kangxi period has not appeared till now, but the appearance of this one would fill in the gaps of history. A source said the palace pottery pieces which have been abroad all these years were able to return to China for the first time because of the efforts of overseas collectors.
 
(Chinanews.cn January 27, 2005)