Today, the prestigious museum ‘Prince Gong’s Palace’ in Beijing opened an exciting exhibition of original art works created by HM Queen Margrethe II of Denmark for the recent film adaptation of the well known Hans Christian Andersen tale, The Wild Swans.
The fairytale of The Wild Swans is written by Hans Christian Andersen, who is still, to this day, one of the world’s most well-known and cherished storytellers not least in China. His fairytales have been translated into more than one hundred and fifty languages including Chinese and are being read by all school children in China.
The main features of the Wild Swans exhibition are original decoupage set designs and costumes created by HM the Queen of Denmark. She has used four years designing costumes and creating scenography for this classic fairytale set in a fantasy land, with kings, castles, magic creatures and witchcraft.
Queen Margrethe II has composed the decoupages from different kinds of paper – often images of paintings and pictures cut out from magazines. In the film, the actors are transposed into the scenery using green screen technology, thus making the connection between contemporary Denmark, its sovereign and the country’s famed story-teller, artist and dramatist.
Adding to these contemporary artworks, Prince Gong’s Palace also presents eight original paper cut artworks created by Hans Christian Andersen himself in the mid-19th century. This Danish cultural heritage is in Beijing on a special loan from the Hans Christian Andersen Museum.
The exhibition opened this afternoon in a ceremony hosted by Mr. Sun Xuguang, director of the Administrative center of Prince Gong’s Palace. His Royal Highness Prince Joachim was present at the opening and made the official opening remarks to the exhibition of his mother’s artworks:
“I am sure Hans Christian Andersen could not possibly have imagined his Wild Swans would take the long journey from Denmark to Beijing, when he wrote it in 1838. But I am quite sure that Andersen would have been very proud, if he had known that first his little mermaid was shown at EXPO in Shanghai and today his Wild Swans are visiting the Prince Gong’s Palace in Beijing,” His Royal Highness Prince Joachim said.
The Wild Swans will be open to the public from Sunday 26th September till Wednesday 20th October.
