Sichuan Museum stands in the western part of Chengdu, close to the Du Fu Thatched Cottage and the Baihuatan area. It is the province's principal museum and holds a large collection covering the archaeology, art and ethnography of Sichuan, which for most of its history was a distinct cultural region rather than part of the central Chinese heartland.
The collections
The museum's strength reflects the region. There is a good group of bronze vessels and weapons from the Shu and Ba cultures, the peoples who lived in the Sichuan basin before and alongside the Chinese states, whose bronzes have a distinctive local form and iconography. The Han dynasty material is particularly strong, including pottery figurines of dancers, musicians, storytellers and farm workers that give a vivid picture of daily life two thousand years ago, along with brick reliefs showing buildings, salt wells and markets. Buddhist sculpture from the Tang and later periods, porcelain, painting and calligraphy fill out the rest.
Ethnography and the west
Because Sichuan borders the Tibetan plateau and is home to a large number of minority peoples, the museum also holds substantial ethnographic collections: textiles, silverwork, religious objects, tools and domestic items from Tibetan, Yi, Qiang and Miao communities. This material connects directly to the landscapes that visitors see if they travel west from Chengdu towards the mountains, and it is a useful counterweight to the purely historical galleries.
Getting there
Metro Line 4 stops near the museum, and it is a short taxi ride from the city centre. It sits within walking distance of the Du Fu Thatched Cottage and the Baihuatan Park, and not far from the Qingyang Palace, so a full day of museums, temples and gardens is easily assembled in this part of the city. The Chengdu Museum in the city centre covers the city's own history and complements this collection rather than duplicating it.
