Exhibitions

Terracotta Warriors exhibition in San Francisco, U.S.

The first exhibition of the figures outside of China was held at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) in Melbourne in 1982.

A collection of 120 objects from the mausoleum and 12 terracotta warriors were displayed at the British Museum in London as its special exhibition "The First Emperor: China's Terracotta Army" from 13 September 2007 to April 2008. This exhibition made 2008 the British Museum's most successful year and made the British Museum the United Kingdom's top cultural attraction between 2007 and 2008. The exhibition brought the most visitors to the museum since the King Tutankhamun exhibition in 1972. It was reported that the 400,000 advance tickets sold out so fast that the museum extended its opening hours until midnight. According to The Times, many people had to be turned away, despite the extended hours. During the day of events to mark the Chinese New Year, the crush was so intense that the gates to the museum had to be shut. The Terracotta Army has been described as the only other set of historic artifacts (along with the remnants of wreck of the RMS Titanic) that can draw a crowd by the name alone.

Warriors and other artifacts were exhibited to the public at the Forum de Barcelona in Barcelona between 9 May and 26 September 2004. It was their most successful exhibition ever. The same exhibition was presented at the Fundación Canal de Isabel II in Madrid between October 2004 and January 2005, their most successful ever. From December 2009 to May 2010, the exhibition was shown in the Centro Cultural La Moneda in Santiago de Chile.

The exhibition traveled to North America and visited museums such as the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, California, Houston Museum of Natural Science, High Museum of Art in Atlanta, National Geographic Society Museum in Washington, D.C. and the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. Subsequently, the exhibition traveled to Sweden and was hosted in the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities between 28 August 2010 and 20 January 2011. An exhibition entitled 'The First Emperor – China's Entombed Warriors', presenting 120 artifacts was hosted at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, between 2 December 2010 and 13 March 2011. An exhibition entitled "L'Empereur guerrier de Chine et son armée de terre cuite" ("The Warrior-Emperor of China and his terracotta army"), featuring artifacts including statues from the mausoleum, was hosted by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts from 11 February 2011 to 26 June 2011.[73] In Italy, from July 2008 to 16 November 2008, five of the warriors of the terracotta army were displayed in Turin at the Museum of Antiquities,[74] and from 16 April 2010 to 5 September 2010 were exposed nine warriors in Milan, at the Royal Palace, at the exhibition entitled "The Two Empires".The group consisted of a horse, a counselor, an archer and six lancers. The "Treasures of Ancient China" exhibition, showcasing two terracotta soldiers and other artifacts, including the Longmen Grottoes Buddhist statues, was held between 19 February 2011 and 7 November 2011 in four locations in India: National Museum of New Delhi, Prince of Wales Museum in Mumbai, Salar Jung Museum in Hyderabad and National Library of India in Kolkata.

Soldiers and related items were on display from 15 March 2013 to 17 November 2013, at the Historical Museum of Bern.

Several Terracotta Army figures were on display, along with many other objects, in an exhibit entitled "Age of Empires: Chinese Art of the Qin and Han Dynasties" at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City from 3 April 2017, to 16 July 2017. An exhibition featuring ten Terracotta Army figures and other artifacts, "Terracotta Warriors of the First Emperor," was on display at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, Washington, from 8 April 2017 to 4 September 2017 before traveling to The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to be exhibited from 30 September 2017 to 4 March 2018 with the addition of augmented reality

An exhibition entitled "China's First Emperor and the Terracotta Warriors" is at the World Museum in Liverpool from 9 February 2018 to 28 October 2018. This is the first time in more than 10 years that the warriors have traveled to the UK.

An exhibition tour of 120 real-size replicas of Terracotta statues was displayed in the German cities of Frankfurt am Main, Munich, Oberhof, Berlin (at the Palace of the Republic) and Nuremberg between 2003 and 2004.