With the opening of the Prosperous Suzhou Special Exhibition drawing near, all 50 exhibits on loan from the Liaoning Provincial Museum, including the celebrated handscroll Prosperous Suzhou, have safely arrived at the Suzhou Museum. To welcome the long-awaited homecoming of this national treasure, the museum has comprehensively upgraded its exhibition design, gallery layout, public programs, cultural and creative offerings, and visitor services for the summer season.
Xie Xiaoting, Director of the Suzhou Museum, said advance ticket sales have been exceptionally strong. Since the exhibition was announced, public enthusiasm has continued to grow, with large numbers of museum enthusiasts, painting and calligraphy researchers, and families from Suzhou and across the Yangtze River Delta reserving tickets well in advance. Anticipation for the exhibition remains exceptionally high.
In preparation for the exhibition, staff from the Suzhou Museum traveled to the Liaoning Provincial Museum to complete the handover, condition inspection, packing, and transportation of all 50 exhibits, including Prosperous Suzhou. Qian Yingge, Director of the Collection Management Department at the Suzhou Museum, said that although she had long studied the scroll through academic publications and photographic materials, this was the first time she had examined the original masterpiece at close range while participating in the transfer. “Seeing the complete original scroll with my own eyes is an entirely different experience from studying documents or photographs,” Qian said.
For Liu Yun, Director of the Exhibition Department at the Liaoning Provincial Museum, participating in the transfer carried special significance. Twenty years after personally escorting Prosperous Suzhou back to Suzhou for its first homecoming exhibition in 2006, she once again oversaw the handover of the treasured masterpiece. “When the scroll returned to Suzhou for the first time two decades ago, local residents were deeply drawn to this masterpiece depicting the city’s historic landscape. Even so, the overwhelming popularity of the exhibition exceeded all our expectations,” Liu recalled.
The 2006 exhibition attracted capacity crowds throughout its run, with long queues becoming a daily sight outside the museum. In Liu’s view, although Suzhou has undergone remarkable changes over the past two decades, the cultural appeal of Prosperous Suzhou has never faded. “The scroll is more than an outstanding work of painting and calligraphy,” she said. “For the people of Suzhou, it represents a shared urban memory and an emotional bond that no other exhibit can replace.”
For this year’s exhibition, the Suzhou Museum has created a dedicated gallery for Prosperous Suzhou, enabling the entire handscroll to be displayed fully unrolled under exhibition conditions and viewing arrangements that are significantly improved over those of two decades ago. Major landmarks depicted in the painting, including Lingyan Mountain, Shihu Lake, Changmen Gate and Tiger Hill, are accompanied by interpretive notes comparing their historical appearance with the modern city, helping visitors gain a deeper understanding of both the masterpiece and Suzhou’s urban evolution. A wide range of accompanying public programs will also be presented throughout the exhibition, including expert lectures, cross-city educational tours, immersive role-playing experiences, and wellness workshops, offering visitors diverse ways to engage with the cultural heritage showcased in the exhibition.
