Chinese porcelain

The City Museum opened in 1929 in the Vleeshuis. One room was set up as a Chinese room with a portrait of the Chinese president in the centre. The porcelain on display was purchased with a donation from Xu Shichang, the president of the Republic of China.
In 1919, Xu Shichang, the president of the Republic of China, donated 50,000 Belgian francs to Ypres for reconstruction, in honour of the Chinese guest workers. After the war, these workers arrived en masse in Ypres to clear the battlefields and build cemeteries.
One of the driving forces behind the donation to post-war Ypres was Lou Tseng-Tsiang. In 1899, he married Berthe Bovy from Belgium, which gave him strong ties to the country. After the war, he mediated between Chinese President Xu Shichang and King Albert I on the presidential donation for the reconstruction of Ypres. It is interesting to note that Lou Tseng-Tsiang became a good friend of Hergé, the creator of Tintin, during his lifetime. He had a major influence on the album “The Blue Lotus”.
Part of the 50,000 BEF donation went to the new Municipal Museum in Ypres, the predecessor of the Ypres Museum. That museum opened in 1929 in the Vleeshuis. One room was set up as a Chinese room with the portrait of the Chinese president in the centre. The porcelain on display was purchased with the donation. Bizarrely, not everything in that room is of Chinese origin. Strangely enough, the city also used the donated money to buy Japanese porcelain! A discovery that only came to light later... These two fine cups are, however, of Chinese manufacture.