Founded in1929, covering an area of 20,400 square meters, the Museum of Zhejiang Province is housed partly in an original Qing imperial palace, where a touring emperor used to lodge, and partly in Wenlaw (Literary Fountain) Library.
In 1993, the museum had its storing and exhibition scale extended. Seven mere exhibition halls - of historical relics, celadon wares, scrolls of calligraphy and painting, coins used in the past dynasties, handicraft art, gifts and souvenirs, and international cultural exchange - had been constructed. They are built in the architectural style of the southern Yangtze area; each building stands on its own, yet connected by winding corridors to the others, so that there are buildings in the garden and gardens amid buildings. The museum compound is now a new scenic spot of the city.
As a large-scale, comprehensive museum of humane studies, it has a collection of more than 100,000 items. Among them are priceless treasures like potteries, articles of lacquer, wood, animal bones and ivory of the Neolithic Age of the Hemudu Culture; jade objects representing the Neolithic Liangchu Culture, unearthed in Liangzhu Village; silk fabrics and bronze vessels of the Yue State (473-306 B.C.); celadon wares of the Yue Kiln and Longquan Kiln and celadon wares made by the official kiln of the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279); bronze mirrors of Kuaiji and Huzhou, Zhejiang, and calligraphy and paintings by famous Zhejiang artists of the Ming and Qing dynasties.
On regular exhibition are: Historical and Cultural Relics of Zhejiang of 7000 Years' Standing, Celadon Wares Made by the Zhejiang Kilns, Paintings and Calligraphy Works of the Past Dynasties, Coins from Different Dynasties; Handicraft Articles of the Past Dynasties, and Gifts and Souvenirs. Master art works from home and abroad are also on display at irregular intervals.
Affiliated to the museum are also the Memorial Hall of Huang Binhong (1865-1 955), well-known painter and writer, in Qixia (Lingering Sunset Glow) Hill; the Memorial Hall of Sha Menhai, an artist, in Longyou Avenue of Hangzhou; the Art Gallery of Chang Shuhong, and the Art Gallery of Lu Xiaguang in the museum compound.
