Anhui Museum

Anhui Museum
安徽博物院

Addresses:

Old site: 268 Anqing Road, Hefei, Anhui province
New site: 268 Huaining Road, Hefei, Anhui province

Hours: 9:00-17:00 (no entry after 16:00)
Closed Mondays (except for national holidays)

E-mail: ahbwywb@163.com

General admission: Free (passport required for entry)

Any member of the staff of the Anhui Museum would be very proud to tell you that the Anhui Museum was the only museum in China that Chairman Mao Zedong (1893-1976), the founding father of the People's Republic of China, ever inspected.

The museum opened its new building in 2011 while its original building, built in 1950 in a Russian architectural style, was undergoing restorations.

The Anhui Museum has an eclectic collection including ancient bronze ware, ancient pictorial bricks, ceramics, metal ware, scholarly accoutrements, traditional Chinese paintings and calligraphy, historical documents and rare books, local crafts, and modern arts.

The most notable artifact that you should not miss is the massive "zhuke" ding tripod (popularly known as the "grand ding tripod of Chu"), a vessel used in significant sacrificial rituals in ancient China. It was unearthed in 1933 from the tomb of the King of You (r. 237-228 BC) of the ancient state of Chu at Shou County of Anhui Province. The tripod is so precious and of such high historical value that it has been chosen as the prototype of the National Sacrificial Ding Tripod used at every memorial ceremony of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre since 2014.

The museum is also home to some 4,000 artworks by the world-renowned Chinese female artist Pan Yuliang (1895-1977) who, with a humble origin and a poignant adolescence in a brothel, established her fame as the first Chinese woman to paint in the Western style.