It isn’t every day that a museum gets a donation large enough to fill its own wing. But for the National Taiwan Museum, Tuesday was just such a day. A generous donation from a prominent collector means that the museum will be getting a permanent exhibition dedicated to the world of puppetry.
Few know puppetry like Paul Lin. The collector has spent decades gathering puppets and puppetry-related artifacts from around the world. Now, he plans to share a sizable part of his collection, some 11,000 artifacts in total, with the public on a permanent basis.
On Tuesday, Lin signed a memorandum of understanding with the National Taiwan Museum stating his intent to donate these items. The total value? Over NT$100 million (US$3.4 million).
National Taiwan Museum Director Hung Shih-yu says the museum plans to organize the donated items over the course of two years and spend NT$20 million (US$680,000) to prepare a repository for their storage.
Hung says that once this is done, the plan is to organize a permanent puppetry exhibit in the museum’s Natural History Branch where visitors can see the priceless objects and learn about their significance.