Kelan Riverside Scenic Area

Jilin Provincial Museum

The Jilin Provincial Museum is a provincial-level comprehensive museum in China. Its location is at No. 3 Guangfu North Road in Changchun, on the former site of the Puppet Manchukuo Emperor Puyi’s Palace. It was initially established in Jilin City in the summer of 1951 and opened in February of the following year. In 1954, it was relocated to its current site in Changchun. Later, in 2003, it merged with the Jilin Provincial Museum of Modern History (Revolutionary Museum) to form the present-day Jilin Provincial Museum.

The museum has an exhibition area of over 2,000 square meters. Its permanent exhibitions include the “Historical Relics of Jilin Province” and the “Natural Resources and Development Exhibition of Jilin Province.” The “Historical Relics of Jilin Province” consists of sections covering the Paleolithic Age, Neolithic Age, Bronze Age, Wuhuan and Xianbei, Goguryeo, Bohai, Liao, Jin, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, displaying 1,331 representative artifacts. The museum regularly hosts various temporary thematic exhibitions and has also organized numerous inter-museum exchange exhibitions. The Zhang Daqian painting exhibition held at the museum was displayed at museums in Zhengzhou, Nanjing, Yangzhou, Hangzhou, and Qingdao.

The museum has published several monographs and collection catalogs, including *Natural Geography of Jilin Province*, *Changbai Mountain*, *A Brief History of Jilin Province*, *Artistic Masterpieces: Collection Highlights of Jilin Provincial Museum*, *Calligraphy Collection: Collection Highlights of Jilin Provincial Museum*, and *Masterpiece Appreciation: The Painting of Lady Wenji Returning to Han*. The museum houses nearly 80,000 items in its collection, including over 10,000 unearthed cultural relics from the province. It also holds more than 11,000 paintings and calligraphic works from various dynasties, and approximately 20,000 heirloom artifacts such as bronze ware, porcelain, jade, woodware, and lacquerware. There are about 26,000 natural specimens. Among them, 144 items are classified as first-grade relics, including 106 paintings and calligraphic works. The collection is particularly distinguished for its artifacts from the Wuhuan, Xianbei, Goguryeo, Bohai, Liao, and Jin periods. Notable items include iron armor and helmets, gold-plated bronze divine beast plaques, bronze cauldrons, and agate bead necklaces unearthed from Han Dynasty Xianbei tombs in Yushu; a Goguryeo yellow-glazed four-eared pottery jar, white jade cup, gold-plated bronze horse trappings, mural replicas, and rubbings of the Haotaiwang Stele excavated in Ji’an; the Bohai Princess Zhenhui Tomb Stele unearthed at Liuding Mountain in Dunhua; gold belt ornaments from Bohai and mural replicas of Princess Zhenxiao’s Tomb unearthed in Helong; a Liao Dynasty Khitan inscribed bronze mirror; and Jin Dynasty hoard items such as Ding kiln purple-glazed printed bowls, white-glazed carved dragon-patterned plates, bronze mirrors, and official bronze seals — all of which are important locally distinctive relics.

The museum boasts a large and diverse collection of paintings and calligraphy, featuring renowned works such as Su Shi’s (Northern Song Dynasty) *Ink Manuscript of Two Poems: Pine Liquor on Zhongshan at Dongting*, Yang Jieyu’s (Southern Song Dynasty) *Hundred Flowers Scroll*, Zhang Yu’s (Jin Dynasty) *The Homecoming of Lady Wenji* (originally attributed to a Song Dynasty artist), He Cheng’s (Yuan Dynasty) *Returning to the Farmstead*, Zhang Wo’s (Yuan Dynasty) *Copy of Li Longmian’s Nine Songs*, Dong Qichang’s (Ming Dynasty) *Dayjin Hall Painting with Inscription of Dayjin Hall Essay*, and Ding Guanpeng’s (Qing Dynasty) *Copy of Zhang Shengwen’s Buddhist Patriarchs Scroll*. The museum also has a rich collection of works by renowned modern and contemporary artists such as Wu Changshuo, Qi Baishi, Xu Beihong, Zhang Daqian, and Pu Xinyu. Additionally, it holds exquisite examples of fan paintings and folding fans from the Ming and Qing dynasties and the past hundred years.