National Palace Museum, Taipei台北故宫博物院（道教文物藏品）

Type

Museums

Location

Taiwan, China · Taiwan · Shilin District, Taipei · No. 221, Section 2, Zhishan Road (Northern Branch)

Coordinates

25.1022, 121.5486 Map ↗

First built

Founded 10 October 1925 in the Forbidden City, Beijing; re-established 12 November 1965 in Taipei · Holdings of about 699,150 objects (as of December 2025)

Overview

The National Palace Museum, Taipei, inherits the former Qing imperial collection; it was established on 10 October 1925 in the Forbidden City in Beiping, and after the collection's repeated relocations south and west during wartime, the museum reopened in Taipei on 12 November 1965, with holdings of about 699,000 objects. Its Daoism-related holdings are scattered across the departments of painting and calligraphy, artifacts, and books and documents: paintings of Daoist and Buddhist figures through the ages, Daoist-themed prints, ritual implements, and manuscript and printed editions of Daoist scriptures — an important resource for studying court Daoism and Daoist art. Two common misconceptions should be clarified: the Northern Song painter Wu Zongyuan's (c. 980–1050) baimiao (plain-line) depiction of a procession of Daoist immortals, the Chaoyuan xianzhang tu, is not held by the National Palace Museum, Taipei — it is generally recorded as being in a private American collection (in the lineage of the former Wang Chi-ch'ien collection); the Bashiqi shenxian juan (Scroll of Eighty-seven Immortals), thought to be possibly a copy of the Chaoyuan xianzhang tu, is likewise not at the National Palace Museum, Taipei. Whether the Ming-dynasty Zhengtong Daozang is held at the National Palace Museum, Taipei, is not clearly documented; what can be confirmed is that the White Cloud Temple, Beijing, holds the 5,485-scroll Zhengtong-era (10th year) edition of the Daoist Canon. It is also worth noting that from 1936 the museum's collection was for a time stored at Chaotian Palace in Nanjing (a Daoist temple) — this was a storage location, not part of the collection.

Highlights

• Paintings of Daoist and Buddhist figures and ritual implements from the former Qing imperial collection
• Holdings of about 699,000 objects
• The Chaoyuan xianzhang tu is not held at this museum
• The collection was stored at Chaotian Palace, Nanjing, from 1936