Macau Scientific and Cultural Centre Museum

About

The Macau Scientific and Cultural Centre Museum (The Macau Museum) in Lisbon is Portugal's main museum of Chinese artefacts and artworks. Made to document Sino-Portuguese relations, the museum contains over 3,500 works of art including decorative artwork, costumes, a collection of opium-smoking paraphernalia and an important extensive collection of Chinese ceramics. The museum comprises two distinct and complementary sections, a section on the Historical and Cultural Condition of Macau in the 16th and 17th Centuries on the ground floor and a section in its Chinese Art Collection on the first floor.

This floor depicts Ming China and to the intercultural border between Europe and China created with the port city of Macau. The exhibit details the history of Luso-Chinese relations and Macau:

- Portugal and China: The Beginnings of an Encounter illustrates the unique conditions that originated the city of Macau, while accompanying the growing relationships of the Portuguese with Ming China and the circulation of interests and information from the China Sea to the Indian and the Atlantic oceans;

- The Port City shows how the network of interests and relations between groups of Portuguese and Chinese created the need and possibility for a city of services between Europe and Asia, between East Asia, the Indian and the Atlantic oceans;

- The Order of Transfers makes contact with some of the ecological and technological exchanges that make Macau a pole of dynamism in East Asia and Europe. New foods, instruments and measures enter China and Europe through Macau, which has been since its origin one of the central points in the regular openness and communication between East Asia and Europe, between both and the rest of the world;

- Christianity and Culture emphasises the role of Macau as a place of religious plurality with a Chinese syncretism of popular religiosity, Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, accompanied by Christianity, with an emphasis on the role of St. Paul's College, the first European university college in China.

This floor covers a period of more than 5,000 years of Chinese history and art. The collection consists of terracottas, Chinese bronzes, stoneware, blue and white porcelain, green family porcelain, pink family porcelain, emblazoned and monogrammed porcelain, religious symbolic porcelain, Shek Wan ceramics, opium-smoking paraphernalia, china trade, lacquerware, paintings from Chinese and European schools, fans, silverware, costumes and a collection of numismatics.

This floor depicts Ming China and to the intercultural border between Europe and China created with the port city of Macau. The exhibit details the history of Luso-Chinese relations and Macau:

- Portugal and China: The Beginnings of an Encounter illustrates the unique conditions that originated the city of Macau, while accompanying the growing relationships of the Portuguese with Ming China and the circulation of interests and information from the China Sea to the Indian and the Atlantic oceans;

- The Port City shows how the network of interests and relations between groups of Portuguese and Chinese created the need and possibility for a city of services between Europe and Asia, between East Asia, the Indian and the Atlantic oceans;

- The Order of Transfers makes contact with some of the ecological and technological exchanges that make Macau a pole of dynamism in East Asia and Europe. New foods, instruments and measures enter China and Europe through Macau, which has been since its origin one of the central points in the regular openness and communication between East Asia and Europe, between both and the rest of the world;

- Christianity and Culture emphasises the role of Macau as a place of religious plurality with a Chinese syncretism of popular religiosity, Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, accompanied by Christianity, with an emphasis on the role of St. Paul's College, the first European university college in China.

This floor covers a period of more than 5,000 years of Chinese history and art. The collection consists of terracottas, Chinese bronzes, stoneware, blue and white porcelain, green family porcelain, pink family porcelain, emblazoned and monogrammed porcelain, religious symbolic porcelain, Shek Wan ceramics, opium-smoking paraphernalia, china trade, lacquerware, paintings from Chinese and European schools, fans, silverware, costumes and a collection of numismatics.

View part of the museum's collection, openly available to download under a CC BY-SA 4.0 licence here.

The manufacture of bronze began in the Xia dynasty (c.2200-1765 B.C.), reaching its zenith during the Shang dynasty (c. 1700-1050 B.C.). It was linked to sacrificial religious rituals and ancestor worship. The first bronzes copied the forms of Neolithic ceramics such as three-footed vases, pedestal plates and jugs. The main decorative motif of the ritual vases of the Shang dynasty was the Taotie – a mask of a non-specified animal with eyes, ears, mouth, horns and paws. A Taotie mask features on a Gui vessel from the Zhou period (c. 771–475 BC) in the museum's collection.

Archeological excavations of tombs of later epochs, Zhou of the East, Han and Tang, reveal the existence of various bronze objects (vases for wine and other beverages, food containers, arms and mirrors) necessary for everyday life and the afterlife.

One of the oldest objects in the museum's collection is a bronze Jue ritual vessel from the Shang dynasty (c. 1750 – 1050 BC). This vessel in which wine was served was called Jue because of its form resembling a bird with a broad beak, used to pour the liquid, and a tail. It also has two wings and three feet.

The collection also holds a bronze sculpture of a dragon dating from the Zhou dynasty (475–221 BC). The dragon is a hybrid of various animals having the head of a lion, the wings and claws of a bird and the scales of a fish. This amalgamation is a symbol for China, given that China was initially made up of several regions, each symbolised by an animal.

The museum has the most important collection of Chinese ceramics in Portugal. With objects ranging from neolithic earthenware to 19th century export porcelain, the museum's ceramics collection covers over a period of over 5,000 years of Chinese art history.

The history of Chinese ceramics dates back to the Neolithic period.