Way Back In 1948,

China was in chaos,

in it's civil war the country was tearing itself apart, with this background, Nationalist forces evacuated thousands of priceless artefacts from Beijing to Taiwan, by the following year, Mao Zedong’s Communist Party had seized power, the evacuated collection never returned to its home country, instead, the artefacts remained in Taiwan’s National Palace Museum, 

 now, the Palace Museum, which houses one of the world’s largest collection of Chinese artefacts and artworks, is opening its (digital) doors to a new audience, 70,000 high-resolution images of items ranging from paintings to antiquities are available in a new digital archive, it’s free to download the images, as well as accompanying background information about artefacts,

so it is great news for historians, researchers, students and artists around the world, with priceless paintings,

 calligraphy and poems like this one available for all to see, read and study,

 also of course there are many examples of ceramics, 

 bronzes,

jades,

books,

documents,

and curiosities, according to The Paper, a state-funded Chinese news site, museum officials plan to add 500 photographs to the database every year which is great news for everyone, online, there are no glass panels between viewers and objects, no lighting restrictions and no passersby jostling for a spot in front of a display case, which all makes having a digital view all the more attractive.