OSAKA MUSEUM CONFIRMS BREAKAGE DUE TO AGE|故宮南院借展瓷盤掉落 日方:胎土老化.自然斷裂

At the southern branch of the Palace Museum. A 300 year old Imari-yaki blue and white willow pattern porcelain piece, borrowed from Japan for display, was found to be have fallen down from the exhibition shelf and been damaged. The museum looked at the cctv monitor and found that no-one had been near it when it fell, so the cause is still unclear. At present the entire display cabinet has been closed. The display case is dark and closed. In the morning of July 18, a 300 year old Imari-yaki blue and white willow pattern porcelain piece, borrowed from Japan for display, was found to be have fallen down from the exhibition shelf and been damaged. The museum does not dare to move it again and is preserving the scene. The CCTV monitor found that over two days no-one had come close to it and rocked the display cabinet and so that cause for its fall was unclear. After the display was covered, it was not moved again. The porcelain plate is a Japanese cultural relics, three hundred years old, from the Osaka City, Japan Oriental Ceramics Museum. The year before last, it was lent for exhibition to the National Palace Museum, and is insured for NT$ 2.2 million. On July 21, in the afternoon the director and staff from the Japanese museum arrived to examine the plate. After careful perusal, they decided that the porcelain was old and had naturally disintegrated. ==KOBAYASHI REN Dir, Osaka City, Japan Oriental Ceramics Museum== when we examined the outward appearance of the plate it looks like it is very strong, but in fact, its substance is crumbling and is very fragile and is in something like a powder-like state. So, in fact, the fragility of the porcelain's substance caused the plate to collapse. The museum said that it did not know if the piece had previously been repaired, but the Japanese would have records and could check whether there was old damage or not. The other 160 pieces of Imari-yaki porcelain on display were checked, and nothing abnormal was discovered. TRANSLATED BY：CLARE LEAR