Editor’s Note
The ongoing Egyptian exhibition at the Hong Kong Palace Museum has drawn significant public interest, with strong attendance figures underscoring the city’s appetite for world-class cultural displays. This success also highlights the museum’s growing role as a major cultural destination.
The Hong Kong Palace Museum is currently hosting the “Great Civilisation of Ancient Egypt – Treasures from the Egyptian Museum” exhibition, which will run until August 31 next year. Museum Director Dr. Louis Ng Chi-wah stated that the exhibition has already attracted 76,000 visitors since its opening. He also projected that the museum’s total visitor count for this year is expected to reach 1 million. Dr. Ng highlighted the success of the museum’s cultural and creative products launched for this exhibition, including its first-ever blind box series, and indicated plans to expand this product line in the future.
Since its opening at the end of last month, the “Great Civilisation of Ancient Egypt” exhibition has drawn 76,000 attendees. Dr. Ng noted that the audience breakdown is approximately 40% local visitors, with mainland Chinese and overseas visitors each accounting for 30%. Regarding the recent long queues and chaotic scenes, Dr. Ng said the museum would continue to review and improve the ticketing process.
The exhibition has spurred the launch of a series of popular cultural and creative products, including six types of blind boxes and a Pharaoh Black Cat plush toy.
The initial batch of 18,000 blind boxes has sold out, with restocking planned for the future. The highly sought-after Pharaoh Cat plush toys are expected to arrive in stock early next week. The museum also plans to release a new batch of cultural and creative products later. Dr. Ng mentioned that the museum recorded over 900,000 visitors last year and, driven by the Egypt exhibition, expects to reach 1 million visitors this year.
The Hong Kong Palace Museum will launch nine new exhibitions next year. These include four new thematic exhibitions jointly organized with the Palace Museum in Beijing, and three special exhibitions co-hosted with The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Guimet National Museum of Asian Arts, and the Tretyakov Gallery, respectively. Additionally, the museum will curate two new thematic exhibitions focusing on multimedia works by Hong Kong artists themed on Chinese mythical beasts, and works created and donated by the painter, calligrapher, and connoisseur Wong Kwan-shum.
One of the key exhibitions, “Brilliance: Jewelry from The Metropolitan Museum of Art,” is scheduled for April next year. It will be the first large-scale exhibition focusing on world jewelry, encompassing pieces from six continents and spanning nearly 4,000 years. Another key exhibition, “Window to Heaven: Religious Art from the Tretyakov Gallery,” will present the profound cultural and artistic traditions of Eastern Orthodoxy. Furthermore, Galleries 1, 2, and 5 will feature new exhibits next year.
