BEIJING - The Palace Museum will open a new museum of foreign antiques next Saturday in Xiamen, a coastal city in east China.

Located on the resort island of Gulangyu, the museum takes up 11,000 square meters of land, and will feature china, pottery and enamel vessels from Britain, France, Germany, and the United States, among others.

Usually gifted by foreign missions in the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, the antiques were an important feature of the decor of palaces in China, said Shan Jixiang, curator of the Palace Museum.

They are proof of the rich cultural exchanges between China and other countries over the centuries, he added.