(Song Ning/Xinhua Daily)

Nanjing Museum launched “The Worldview of the Great Ming Dynasty” exhibition on January 22 as part of the Spring Festival celebrations.

Gao Jie, curator and a deputy researcher at the museum, said that the exhibition covers 1,600 square meters and features over 400 significant artifacts curated from more than 30 cultural and historical institutions both domestically and abroad.

Nanjing was the capital city in the early Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), which established regional cooperation across East and Southeast Asia centered around tribute trade.

Notably, during the period, the maritime voyages of Zheng He greatly expanded overseas exchanges and enhanced the West's understanding of China. As this year marks the 620th anniversary of Zheng He's voyage, the special exhibition features an abundance of artifacts related to the expedition.

Among the exhibits are some of the earliest surviving Chinese-made oil paintings, including a rare portrait of Matteo Ricci, an Italian missionary, scholar and one of the founding figures of the Jesuit China missions. Regarded as the first Western scholar to read Chinese literature and study Chinese classics, Ricci made extensive contacts with Chinese officials and elites, spreading Western knowledge of astronomy, mathematics and geography in the empire.

The rare portrait, created by You Wenhui (alias Manuel Pereira) in 1610, is also the most popular portrait of the missionary worldwide. In 1614, a French missionary took the portrait back to Rome. More than 400 years later, this portrait returns for the exhibition in Nanjing, the city where Ricci once visited.

(Song Ning/Xinhua Daily)

Nanjing Museum launched “The Worldview of the Great Ming Dynasty” exhibition on January 22 as part of the Spring Festival celebrations.

(Song Ning/Xinhua Daily)

Nanjing Museum launched “The Worldview of the Great Ming Dynasty” exhibition on January 22 as part of the Spring Festival celebrations.