“The ice cream bar is engraved with dancers, lotus flowers, and window lattices. I bought an ice cream bar mystery box with flavors of sea salt and cheese and it surprised me.” Standing in front of the freezer at the cultural creative fair, also known as the cultural and creative exhibition area of Liaoning Provincial Museum, the children unwrapped the “cultural and creative ice cream bar mystery box featuring Court Ladies Adorning Their Hair with Flowers” and were amazed at the exquisite shapes and carvings. “It’s creative and considerate. I wanna have a taste at the sight of it.” they exclaimed.
Since the beginning of summer this year, Liaoning Provincial Museum has launched three cultural and creative frozen desserts, including jade pig-shaped dragon ice cream bar, happy fish frozen mousse cake, and cultural and creative ice cream bar mystery box featuring Court Ladies Adorning Their Hair with Flowers, priced from 15 yuan to 19 yuan. Although sanfu (dog days of summer) has already ended, the “Autumn Tiger”(Indian summer) is still influencing people’s life. The tourists’ enthusiasm for buying ice cream bars continued unabated and just jade pig-shaped dragon ice cream bars can sell over 3000 pieces.
The design of “jade pig-shaped dragon ice cream bar” is inspired by the jade pig-shaped dragon collected in the museum. It dates back more than 5,000 years ago and is a representative jade article of Hongshan Culture. Its body is bold in style and the dragon’s head is finely and vividly sculptured. This ice cream bar has two flavors: classic vanilla cream and mellow hazelnut chocolate. The vanilla-flavored ice cream bars reproduce the chicken-bone white, sleek lines, and finely polished touch of the jade pig-shaped dragon. It has a creamy and smooth texture. Many visitors unwrapped the ice cream bars and trotted to the first exhibition hall of Ancient Liaoning to take photos with the real cultural relic. The jade pig-shaped dragon is also a classic IP of Liaoning Provincial Museum. The museum’s logo is a line drawing of the jade pig-shaped dragon image. It is also used as the design of jade ornaments, key chains, notebook covers, and seals, which are very popular among tourists.
The “happy fish frozen mousse cake” combines the design of the Yaozhou Kiln fish-shaped celadon water jar of the Five Dynasties with the making of frozen mousse cake. After being refrigerated at minus 18 degrees Celsius, it is combined with a secret biscuit base to achieve a creamy and smooth texture. Most lines of the “happy fish frozen mousse cake” are designed as detailed strokes and show sparkling layers. There are four colors of “happy fish frozen mousse cake”, respectively named “Taoyao Pink”, “Xiangye Yellow”, “Bishan Green”, and “Yunmen Cyan”, corresponding to four flavors: strawberry and raspberry, tiramisu, yogurt sea salt, and cantaloupe.
The “cultural and creative ice cream bar mystery box featuring Court Ladies Adorning Their Hair with Flowers” has six patterns corresponding to six flavors, drawn from the images of five ladies wearing different flowers and a fan-holding lady in the collected painting Ladies Adorning Their Hair with Flowers. The team changed their designs over ten times to bring the carved figures to life, with the clear cloud hair bun. The “ice flesh and jade bones” of the figures carved in the ice cream bars make people feel cool.
In addition to frozen desserts, a range of cultural and creative products of Liaoning Provincial Museum have frequently got popular in recent years. In June this year, the series of handmade essential oil soaps won an award in a cultural and creative competition. They are based on the exhibits of ceramics, calligraphy and paintings in the museum. Two soaps sold out soon after being launched, which featured the classic kesi work of the Southern Song Dynasty Camellia and Butterfly and Auspicious Cranes painted by Zhao Jie, Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty.
Liaoning Provincial Museum started developing cultural and creative products in 2008. Its first work is a white porcelain knick-knack that uses Dehua white porcelain to completely recreate the image of a lady in Ladies Adorning Their Hair with Flowers. In recent years, the museum’s products have gradually changed from “recreation” to “creation”.
“The Qixi Festival, or Chinese Valentine’s Day is approaching, and our ‘flower shadows with hairpin patterns: Ladies Adorning Their Hair with Flowers paper art lamp’ has been launched, and the series of real flower headdresses of the painting is being made and modified. Soon tourists will be able to visit the museum wearing the same ornaments of figures in the painting.” Zhou Yingqiu, director of the cultural and creative center of Liaoning Provincial Museum, said, “Cultural and creative products have a positive impact on the popularization of the museum and its collections. They bring cultural relics to life, better reflect their value of history, culture, aesthetics, technology, and times, and expand their cultural influence.”
