Starting this Wednesday, Nov. 22, Hong Kong's Palace Museum will showcase 52 masterpieces from the National Gallery as part of the Britain institution's touring show. The collection will include 15th-century to 20th-century works from 50 Legendary artists including Raphael, Rembrandt, Monet, and Van Gogh.
The exhibition is aptly dubbed "Botticelli to Van Gogh: Masterpieces from the National Gallery" which will cover varying artistic styles and eras from the Renaissance all the way to Post-Impressionism. The Hong Kong showing marks the third and last stop in the Asia tour of the exhibition.
“Botticelli to Van Gogh: Masterpieces from the National Gallery, London” will open on 22 Nov. Organised by the #HKPM and the #NationalGallery, London, “Botticelli to Van Gogh” will be the first showcase of the Gallery’s prestigious painting collection in HK. Tix sale opens 1 Oct. pic.twitter.com/oLQ9BkifV0
— West Kowloon Cultural District (@WKCDA) September 30, 2023
Running until April 11, the Palace Museum show is split into six thematic sections of sacred images, portraiture, everyday scenes, mythological stories, paintings of modern life, and landscape pieces. On the other hand, the Shanghai and Seoul showing of the exhibitions presented the paintings chronologically.
Highlights of the exhibition are Van Gogh's "Long Grass with Butterflies" (1890), Rembrandt's "Self Portrait at the Age of 63" (1669), and Monet's "Irises" (around 1914-1917).
The National Gallery Proves Successful in its Asia Exhibition Tour
According to a report by the South China Morning Post, Palace Museum director Louis Ng Chi-wa projected around 300,000 visitors as a result of the approaching tourist season brought by Christmas and other major events.
Comparingly, past shows of the tour have already shown success with the Shanghai show pulling over 420,000 and the Seoul showcase drawing a crowd of 360,000, with the former being the most popular pay-to-see exhibition run by the National Gallery.
In a statement, National Gallery director Dr. Gabriele Finaldi also shared that the joint effort between the museums has been two years in the making and is a golden opportunity for an Asian Audience to get acquainted with the British collection.
Finaldi adds that, in essence, the exhibition tour is the "National Gallery in miniature," showing the institution's continued efforts to innovate ways to establish partnerships.
