Beijing Art Museum

The Beijing Art Museum is located within the Wanshou Temple, a treasure of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Wanshou Temple was originally built in the fifth year of the Wanli era of the Ming Dynasty (1577), serving as a royal temple. It has undergone several large-scale renovations during the reigns of Emperors Kangxi, Qianlong, and Guangxu, resulting in a complex that combines temple, royal palace, and garden architectures in an east-central-west route layout, occupying 50 acres of royal temple grounds, once known as the 'Miniature Forbidden City' in the west of Beijing. The Beijing Art Museum now houses nearly 50,000 pieces of ancient art, ranging from the primitive society to the Ming and Qing dynasties. The collection is extensive and mainly includes calligraphy and paintings from various dynasties, steles and famous letters, court embroidery, palace porcelain, ancient furniture, coins and seals from various dynasties, etc. It also holds over one hundred thousand volumes of ancient books and manuscripts dating from the Song Dynasty to the Republic of China.