Hengxian Museum

Hengxian Museum

Hengxian Museum is located in Haitang Historical and Cultural Park on the western outskirts of Hengxian County, a scenic area surrounded by lush greenery. The site was formerly the location of the Huaihai Academy (established during the Ming Dynasty to commemorate the renowned Northern Song Dynasty poet Qin Guan, who lectured and promoted literature in Hengzhou).

Construction of Hengxian Museum began in July 1991 and it was completed and opened to the public in May 1992, becoming the first county-level museum in Nanning. The museum is a semi-two-story antique-style building constructed with reinforced concrete, covering a land area of 1,800 square meters and a total floor space of 900 square meters. It houses offices, exhibition halls, and cultural relics storage rooms, serving as an important venue for the collection, exhibition, and research of cultural relics in Hengxian. In May 2009, it was rated as a National Third-Class Museum, and in 2010, it was recognized as a Nanning Civilized Unit.

The museum houses nearly a thousand precious cultural relics and specimens ranging from the Neolithic Age to the Ming and Qing Dynasties. These mainly include stoneware, bone and shell artifacts, ceramics, metalware, jade artifacts, ethnic costumes, calligraphy, and paintings. Among them are 3 national first-class relics, 16 second-class relics, and 147 third-class relics. The quality and quantity of the museum’s collection rank first among all counties in Nanning.

The Museum’s Treasure — “Blue-and-White Porcelain Jar with Figurative Story Scene”

This Yuan Dynasty blue-and-white porcelain jar depicting figurative scenes was unearthed in the winter of 1988 at the County Agricultural Technology Extension Center. The painting portrays the story of Yu Chigong of the Tang Dynasty rescuing the Qin King with a single whip. The scene is grand and spectacular, with vividly distinct characters and exquisitely detailed patterns. The jar is large in size, distinctly characteristic of Yuan Dynasty blue-and-white porcelain, elegantly shaped, with a thick body, vibrant colors, bold brushwork, and rich, deep hues resembling an ink painting with a dynamic interplay of light and shade. It reflects the exceptional craftsmanship of Jingdezhen ceramic art during China’s Yuan Dynasty and is extremely rare, valued at hundreds of millions of yuan. Very few Yuan Dynasty blue-and-white porcelains have been discovered nationwide, with only slightly over a hundred unearthed in total. Jars with figurative stories like this one are even rarer — only nine exist in the world, and Hengxian Museum possesses one of them.

The museum’s current permanent exhibition is the "Hengxian Historical Relics Exhibition," which displays various historical relics unearthed, collected, and preserved within Hengxian, ranging from the Neolithic Age to the modern era, along with select pieces of ethnic cultural heritage. It showcases Hengxian’s long history, splendid culture, and achievements in politics, economy, science, and culture.

No. 248, Huaihai Road, Hengzhou Town, Hengxian County

Tel: 0771—7223566

Opening Hours: 8:30 AM – 11:30 AM, 3:00 PM – 5:30 PM

Admission: Free

Further Reading:

· China National Third-Class Museum