Shaoguan Museum 韶关市博物馆

About Shaoguan Museum

Its regional collections include brown-glazed models of ploughing and working rice fields, with small human figures and oxen arranged across miniature plots. A figure-supported pottery lamp provides another example of narrative detail worked into an ordinary object. Read these pieces alongside the ceramics displays and local archaeology: their small scale rewards close looking more than a hurried circuit through the galleries.

The museum was founded in November 1960, originally housed in the Fengcai Building (风采楼). In 1998, the Shaoguan municipal government invested more than 23 million yuan in a new building, which was completed in March 2001 and formally opened in March 2002. The new building is a four-storey courtyard-style structure whose entrance wall is inlaid with red sandstone reliefs, one depicting the legend of Emperor Shun ascending Shao and stone chimes playing Shao music, the other depicting a scene of Maba Man (马坝人) life.

The museum occupies a site of 10,300 square meters with a building area of 7,500 square meters and is designated a national second-level museum; its name was inscribed by the painter and calligrapher Zhang Ding (张仃). It also administers the CPC Guangdong Provincial Committee Yuebei Sub-Committee History Exhibition Hall and the Northern Expedition War Memorial Hall. Its exhibition Ancient Yu, Elegant Shaozhou (古虞名郡 风度韶州), covering Shaoguan's ancient history, was renovated and reopened in 2020.

What to look for

• The museum’s Jin-period farming models show people, oxen and divided rice-field plots in glazed pottery.
• The ceramics collection includes a pottery lamp supported by a human figure; check the current display selection.

Location & getting there

Getting to Shaoguan Museum

Go to 90 Gongye West Road in Wujiang District. This is the purpose-built municipal museum, rather than Fengcai Tower, which was associated with an earlier museum location.