The National Museum of China has opened "The Qianlong Emperor's Southern Inspection Tour" on December 28, officially opening the stationary digital gallery in the museum.
The Qianlong Emperor's Southern Inspection Tour is considered as one of China's national treasures held at the country's national museum. It is an artistic collection that consists of 12 scrolls depicting the emperor's tour of southern China in 1751 that took 112 days and covered 2,900 kilometres.
The Quianlong Emperor commission the court painter to create the scrolls in order to record his journey, the scrolls are 154.17 metres in length.
The digitized display of the scrolls comes in two parts, the first of which gives information about the painter, Xu Yang, the route of the tour and its background. It shows a high definition image of the first and sixth scrolls. The other part is an informative four-minute 3D animated video about the Qianlong Emperor's Southern Inspection Tour and an advertising video. The first scroll is displayed again in the second part on an theatre screen four metres high and 30 metres long.
Lv Zhangshen, the National Museum's director, said, "The other 11 scrolls of the Qianlong Emperor's Southern Inspection Tour will continue to be displayed by 3D movies in the future while more modern technical skills will be used in the scroll's display to help audiences have a better understanding of this encyclopedic masterpiece."
The display is located at Gallery S6 of the museum and is available for ciewing four times a day, 9:30 am, 10:30 am, 2:00 pm and 3:00 pm. Tickets cost 5 yuan (around 0.80 U.S. dollars).