Song and Yuan Rare Books Exhibited at Shanghai Museum

An exhibition of the selection of the Song and Yuan rare books, themed with “Pages through the Ages”, was kicked off at the Shanghai Museum on May 16th. This is Shanghai Museum’s first exhibition of its collected ancient books of the Song and Yuan dynasties. Sixty-six handwritten copies, block-printed copies, and rubbings of the Song and Yuan dynasties have been selected in this exhibition for visitors. About half of these exhibits have been selected into the "National List of Rare Ancient Books" and "Shanghai List of Rare Ancient Books". Many of them are deemed as national treasure or worldwide rare copies.

The Song and Yuan dynasties see a peak in the growth of Chinese culture, which entails a golden age of ancient books.In this period, papermaking technology matured, ink manufacturing entered a stage of transformation, and printing technology reached an unprecedented level. Books of the time were mainly made of paper, with various binding formats, including scroll binding, concertina binding, butterfly binding and wrapped-back binding, and were handwritten, block-printed, or rubbed from steles. They show beauty in fonts, typography and binding, and therefore are objects of desire for collectors of all time.