Beijing Mumingtang Ancient Porcelain Specimen Museum

Beijing Mumingtang Ancient Porcelain Specimen Museum

The Beijing Mumingtang Ancient Porcelain Specimen Museum is located at No. 1, Donghuashi Beili East Area, Dongcheng District, Beijing. It is a unique folk museum that combines traditional Chinese tea art performances and appreciation with the study and hands-on experience of ancient Chinese ceramic specimens. The museum covers a total area of 428 square meters and includes exhibition areas, touch zones, internet zones, tea areas, study areas, and reading areas. The museum currently houses a collection of about 50,000 ancient Chinese ceramic specimens, with around 1,200 on regular display. The exhibits can be regularly rotated according to different themes. The museum opened to the public in 2001, with an exhibition area of over 600 square meters, featuring about 50,000 ancient porcelain fragments from 30 renowned kilns, mainly from famous and folk kilns dating back to the Tang and Song dynasties and later. Among the precious exhibits are a Jin Dynasty Guanyin statue, a Ming Dynasty ornamental rock, and a dragon table from the Daoguang era. The museum has also hosted exhibitions such as the “Ru Kiln Special Exhibition,” “Scholar’s Desk Objects Exhibition,” and “Yuanmingyuan Excavated Cultural Relics Specimen Exhibition.”

The museum covers a total area of 428 square meters and includes exhibition areas, touch zones, internet zones, tea areas, study areas, and reading areas. The museum currently houses a collection of about 50,000 ancient Chinese ceramic specimens, with around 1,200 on regular display. The exhibits can be regularly rotated according to different themes. In the touch zone, visitors—both domestic and international—are provided with a platform to “touch history.” Here, people can touch precious ancient ceramic specimens from various dynasties including the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing. Through hands-on activities, the museum embodies its philosophy of “piecing together fragments of civilization and connecting cultural genes.” In the internet zone, the collecting website centered on “Mumingtang” offers a broader space for collectors. The site’s “database” preserves tens of thousands of photographs of ancient Chinese cultural relics collected from major museums overseas—artifacts that have been lost abroad for years, known as “overseas treasures.” This is a unique and strong feature of the website, indicating vast potential for further development. In the tea area (drinking area), professionally trained tea artists perform exquisite Chinese tea ceremonies, accompanied by live guzheng performances. With the guzheng music blending with the aroma of tea, and the lighting highlighting the ancient ceramics, visitors feel as though they are wandering between history and reality, experiencing traditional Chinese culture in an exceptionally relaxing atmosphere.

“Mumingtang” was originally a teahouse near Donghuashi in Beijing. Due to its rich collection and well-planned layout, it caught the attention of experts and gradually became a “paradise” for ancient porcelain enthusiasts. The three owners of Mumingtang—Jiang Yu, Bai Ming, and Chen Haorui—come from different backgrounds and professions, but their shared passion for ancient porcelain fragments has driven them to invest substantial time, effort, and money. They visited kiln sites, construction areas, and markets, painstakingly collecting around 50,000 ancient porcelain fragments in 30 categories. Although not every piece is a masterpiece, when displayed along a 350-meter-long exhibition corridor, they present a magnificent spectacle. The distinct thickness of Yuan Dynasty blue-and-white porcelain, the delicate elegance of Ming Dynasty Chenghua doucai, and the icy-jade-like Yue celadon, the snow-white Xing kiln white porcelain, and the colorful Jun porcelain—all have clear origins. Though these exhibits are merely fragments of ancient porcelain, experts affirm that they are “imperfect yet beautiful, imperfect yet precious, imperfect yet valuable, and imperfect yet instructive.” Visitors can gently touch these fragments, as if touching a piece of history. The colors, brushwork, and glaze on each fragment seem to tell a story of the past.

The Mumingtang Ancient Porcelain Specimen Museum holds a steadfast belief: “piecing together fragments of civilization and tracing cultural genes.” Each porcelain fragment specimen here freezes traces of ancient Chinese culture accumulated over thousands of years, even retaining the lingering warmth of history. As long as you are good at exploring, even the tiniest piece of ancient porcelain can open up a vast historical world.

The Beijing Mumingtang Ancient Porcelain Specimen Museum is a privately-run museum primarily dedicated to showcasing ancient Chinese porcelain specimens and popularizing related cultural knowledge. The exhibition area spans over 400 square meters, and the museum houses about 50,000 ancient porcelain fragments from more than 30 categories of famous kilns throughout history. The collection mainly features specimens from renowned and folk kilns dating back to the Tang and Song dynasties, covering nearly all major kilns, with significant emphasis on Song Dynasty porcelain, especially from the Five Famous Kilns. The museum also boasts an especially rich collection of ancient porcelain specimens from the Ming Chenghua and Zhengde eras, as well as the Qing Kangxi and Yongzheng periods, with exceptional abundance in Ru kiln porcelain from the Song Dynasty. Among the most dazzling pieces is a Ming Dynasty polychrome carved cloud-phoenix-pattern vase, standing 49.5 cm tall with a mouth diameter of 15 cm and a base diameter of 17.2 cm. The vase has a washed mouth, a long neck, a drooping belly, and a ring foot. On both sides of the neck are attached lion-shaped handles. The entire body is outlined in brown or reddish-brown, decorated with underglaze blue-and-white and various colors including red, yellow, green, eggplant purple, and peacock green, with a total of eight layers of patterns painted across the vessel. The belly of the vase features nine phoenixes carved in openwork, flying among auspicious clouds, forming the main decorative motif. The mouth of the vase is adorned with openwork ruyi-cloud patterns, while the neck is encircled with polychrome banana leaf patterns and features several carved butterflies in flight. The lion-shaped handles on both sides of the neck are inscribed with the Chinese character for “longevity” (寿) in blue-and-white seal script. Below the neck are decorative floral and eight-treasure patterns. There is no signature mark. From the mouth to the base, the entire vessel is densely covered with layers of intricate patterns, leaving no blank spaces, making it extraordinarily splendid. The polychrome style of this period marks a departure from the sparse, elegant, and tranquil aesthetic of the Chenghua era, shifting instead to a bold and vibrant style with dense and complex patterns covering the entire body. Though excessively ornate and lacking in refined elegance, this reflects the characteristics of Wanli-era polychrome ware. This vase is a quintessential example. The openwork cloud-phoenix-pattern vase not only successfully employs polychrome decoration but also showcases masterful carving skills, giving an impression of extraordinary craftsmanship. The combination of such intricate openwork and polychrome decoration reflects the exceptional skill of the porcelain artisans of the time, making this piece a rare treasure among Wanli-era official kiln polychrome porcelains.

Transportation Information

Address: No. 1, Donghuashi Beili East Area, Dongcheng District, Beijing

Opening Hours: 10:00–18:00

Transportation Routes: Get off at Dongbianmen Station via Bus 39, 43, or 44; get off at East Baiqiao Street Station via Bus 12 Loop, 525, or 610; get off at Guangqumen Nei Station via Bus 23 or 57

Self-Drive Route: Go north at the first traffic light west of Guangqumen Bridge, then head to Baiqiao Street.