Hong Kong Palace Museum

The Hong Kong Palace Museum (HKPM) is currently holding a joint exhibition with the Palace of Versailles with approximately 150 magnificent pieces to peruse. This is the first time that treasures from the Forbidden City and the Palace of Versailles – both World Heritage Sites – will be featured in one exhibition in Hong Kong. With themes spanning culture, arts, science, technology, and beyond in the royal courts of France and China, visitors can expect to admire portraits, porcelain pieces, glassware, enamelware, textiles, books, scientific instruments, and more. Look out for first-grade national treasures from the Palace Museum in Beijing, such as a chrysanthemum teapot gifted to the Qianlong Emperor that was recently discovered to be made in France, and a quiver and bow case with French-made brocade. Highlights flown over from the Palace of Versailles include a perfume fountain – the only Chinese porcelain piece that Louis XV was known to have owned – and a portrait plaque of Qianlong that Louis XVI had displayed in his study. Tickets for this special exhibition are priced at $150, with concessions available. Holders of HKPM’s Full Access Ticket can also access The Origins of Chinese Civilisation exhibition at a combined price of $180.

Opening just ahead of the 75th anniversary of the founding of the PRC, the Hong Kong Palace Museum launches this special exhibition which explores the origins and development of Chinese civilisation through artefacts that span over 4,000 through history. The result of two decades of comprehensive national-level research and large-scale archaeological surveys, this exhibition showcases just under 110 treasures spanning the Neolithic period to the Xia dynasty loaned to Hong Kong from 14 major cultural institutions – including 16 grade-one national treasures. Almost all these loans are displayed in our city for the first time. Among the jades, stone sculptures, ceramics, bone and bronze objects, and more, keep an eye out for a cloud-shaped jade plaque, a stone sculpture from the Shimao archaeological site, and a jade dragon from the Hongshan culture which is believed to be one of the earliest objects to bear the motif of a dragon in China. Tickets to this exhibition are priced at $100 for adults, with concession prices available. There is also the Full Access Ticket which costs $180 and grants access to ‘The Adorned Body’ exhibition as well as other thematic exhibitions within HKPM on the same day.