The Hong Kong Palace Museum (HKPM) and the Palace Museum in Beijing have jointly opened a major exhibition titled "The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: The Forbidden City and the World - Cultural Encounters" in Hong Kong. Featuring over 130 rare artifacts from the Palace Museum in Beijing, the HKPM, and the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, the exhibition explores more than six centuries of global exchanges through the lens of the Forbidden City, spanning the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. It includes 18 grade-one national treasures and is organized into four thematic sections covering trade, diplomacy, science, technology, philosophy, and the arts.
The exhibition matters because it positions the Forbidden City within a global context, highlighting China's historical openness to cultural exchange and its influence on and from other parts of Asia and Europe. By presenting artifacts such as a mosque lamp from the Mamluk Dynasty and a geometric polyhedron model illustrating the Kangxi Emperor's interest in mathematics, the show underscores the interconnectedness of civilizations. It also resonates with Hong Kong's multicultural identity and reinforces the HKPM's mission to deepen understanding of Chinese art and culture from diverse perspectives.