From December 17 to May 14, 2012, the departmental museum of Asian Arts in Nice presents its new major exhibition “Children of China, Little Tigers and Young Dragons.”
-The theme of the child is very ancient in Chinese art.
The exhibition “Children of China, Little Tigers and Young Dragons” offers a multifaceted approach—social, ethnological, religious, and aesthetic—of Chinese childhood, exploring through costumes and objects of daily life or court life, two opposing worlds: that of the common people and that of the elites. The tiger and the dragon, the two symbols chosen as the title to express this duality, are frequently associated with China through the centuries. In the Chinese popular imagination, the tiger is a fierce and brave animal, believed to have the power to protect the child from evil spirits. For this reason, infants were dressed in hats, collars, and slippers with motifs of this feline, portraying them as little tigers. As for the dragon, it is the emblem of the imperial family, reserved from a very young age for the children of the elite, the young dragons. Their ceremonial costumes, like those of adults, were abundantly decorated with this fantastic figure.
The daily life of children, their education, games, festivities, beliefs, and superstitions, all these different themes are addressed throughout the exhibition, through a collection of items: clothing and accessories, childcare furniture, paintings, tapestries, photographs, posters, porcelains, statuettes, figurines… which convey the touching, magical, and singular universe of the children of China. The exhibition of shoes for bound feet evokes the fate of little girls with the very painful practice of foot binding that began at a very young age. The end of the tour is dedicated to the Maoist period, presenting toys, school accessories, books and notebooks, objects bearing the likeness of Mao, as well as propaganda posters on the theme of childhood.
This collection of approximately two hundred and fifty pieces, with the oldest dating from the Tang dynasty (618-907) and the most recent from the 1980s, comes from the private collection of François Dautresme and the National Museum of Asian Arts – Guimet, particularly from the former collection of Krishnâ Riboud.
