After 7 years' of checking, sorting and compiling, the Compendium of Collections in the Palace Museum finally has arrived.
Concentrating on the most typical and fabulous 150,000 works and carefully chosen from 1,800,000 in total, the work is split into into 26 volumes comprising about 500 books, including ceramics, paintings, calligraphic works, stele rubbings, bronze, jade and jewelry. It has been called the "Palace Museum on paper" due to its unprecedented size.
The Forbidden City Publishing House and Anhui Fine Arts Publishing House co-publish the first three volumes of the compendium, with nine books of sculpture, five on enamels and 10 on jade. Chinese and English bilingual explanatory notes make it easy for the work to spread all around the world. The advanced lithography technology and high-quality bookbinding make the Compendium of Collections in the Palace Museum an artwork in itself, worth treasuring.
Each of the cultural artifacts selected in the book is extremely precious and rarely seen in public, with a high value for archaeological and scientific research. The publication of the work, printed with advanced technology, presents these mysterious artifacts in a systematic, comprehensive way and turns them into cultural resources truly shared by the public and be beneficial for further revealing the cultural significance of the Forbidden City and also for its overall protection in future.