An exhibition featuring original bronze animal heads from Beijing's Old Summer Palace (Yuanmingyuan) has opened at the Zhijiang branch of Zhejiang Provincial Museum in Hangzhou, drawing large crowds eager to get a close look at some of China's most iconic cultural relics.
The exhibition, titled Revisiting Yuanmingyuan: A Centennial Homecoming of National Treasures, showcases several collections of precious artifacts, including the original bronze heads of the tiger, monkey, pig, and ox from the Old Summer Palace, which are making their first appearance at the museum.
Taking advantage of the weekend and the summer holiday season, many visitors arrived early. Social media users described the experience as resembling the massive lines seen during the annual Spring Festival travel rush. The overwhelming popularity of the exhibition prompted the museum to set up line barriers, organizing visitor flow and crowd control, and deploying additional security to maintain order.
"It's rare to have a free weekend, and as soon as we heard that the authentic animal heads were on display in Hangzhou, I brought my child here immediately," said a visitor surnamed Wang. "The wait was long, but seeing these national treasures from our textbooks with our own eyes, even through glass, feels completely different."
Beyond the reunion of the four bronze heads, the exhibition also features a number of precious repatriated artifacts, offering visitors a chance to travel back in time and glimpse the former splendor of Yuanmingyuan, once known as the "Garden of Gardens".
The exhibition invites reflection on the turbulent journeys behind these treasures: how they were looted, how they were recovered, and how each return represents a chapter in the nation's broader story.
The exhibition will run through Oct 18 and is free to the public.
To meet strong public demand, the branch has extended its opening hours for the summer season from July 29 to Aug 31. The museum is open from 9 am to 7:30 pm, Tuesday through Sunday, with last admission at 7 pm. It is closed on Mondays for maintenance.
