Events

2 Feb 2024 - 31 Jul 2024

Gallery II, CUHK Art Museum

“Celebrating the Year of the Dragon” features over 50 objects from the Museum’s collection, including jades, bone carving, gold and bronze, ceramics, stone carvings, textiles, scholars’ stationery and rubbings. Exhibit highlights include a Western Han Dynasty turquoise seal that inspired the Museum’s emblem, an annular white jade box with a dragon design dated from the Five Dynasties to the Northern Song, as well as a dragon brush-holder created by the legendary ceramic designer Tang Ying (1682-1756).

2024 is the Year of the Dragon, according to the Chinese zodiac. For almost 8,000 years, the mythological beast has garnered immense reverence and admiration from people. Contrary to common understanding, rather than constant and unchanging, the image of the dragon has evolved arbitrarily, as recorded in literature. Celebrating the year of this powerful creature, the Art Museum presents this exhibition to explore the iconography of the dragon in ancient Chinese art against the socio-cultural contexts of different times.