National Palace Museum

Founding of the National Palace Museum The collection of cultural artifacts held by the National Palace Museum is composed of an enormous treasure trove of objects inherited from the previous Sung, Yuan, Ming and Ching dynasties. When the Republic of China was first founded, these imperial treasures had remained within the Forbidden City with the last Ching Emperor Pu Yi, but countless works of art were lost either because they were granted by Pu Yi as presents, because they were borrowed by his past noblemen, or because they were pledged to pawnbrokers or stolen. In 1914 the Republic of China Government relocated the cultural artifacts preserved at the Rehe Imperial Summer Retreat and the Shenyang Former Palace to the outer court of the Forbidden City, and made them available for public viewing at an Exhibition Office of Ancient Artifacts. In 1924 Pu Yi moved out of the Forbidden City, and the Government formed a Committee for the Disposition of Ching Imperial Possessions to ...