Exhibitions: Chinese Popular Picture from the collection of the Museum of the History of Religion presented in Saint-Petersburg

Exhibition "Travel around Old China with the academician V. M. Alekseyev" (Chinese Popular Picture from the collection of the State Museum of the History of Religion) which opened at the State Museum of the History of Religion (Saint-Petersburg), invites you to take a fascinating journey into the world of the ancient, but still little known Russian public Chinese culture, accompanied by the brilliant Orientalist, founder of the Russian sinology school and a good storyteller Academician V. M. Alekseyev (1881-1951).

In 1907, while still a very young and novice researcher, Alekseyev took part in the first scientific archaeological journey through China, organized by the connoisseur of ancient Chinese history, the French sinologist Eduard Chavannes, of whom he was an intern at the College de France in Paris.

Traveling through China, Alekseyev collected folk paintings (splints), inscriptions, amulets, small samples of prints and calligraphy, art writing paper, prints with ancient stone slabs, plunged into the intricacies of spoken Chinese language, closely watched life and showed genuine and keen interest in Chinese culture, in all its manifold manifestations. His experiences and priceless observations he set out on the pages of the diary, which was published after the death of the scientist in 1958 and formed the basis of this exhibition.

The exhibition allows going the way of the expedition of E. Chavannes and seeing China at the beginning of the XX century through the eyes of Russian novice researcher Alekseyev. The exhibition features a collection of popular prints at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, collected by V. M. Alekseyev during this trip and received to the State Museum of the History of Religion in 1938. The collection, numbering over 1000 popular prints, is presented by the most striking examples.

Interesting examples of Chinese arts and crafts: tiny plastic, porcelain, metal products and etc. are also presented at the exhibition.