The National Palace Museum in Taipei has the largest collection of ancient Chinese artifacts and artworks in the world. The museum was originally established as the Palace Museum in Beijing’s Forbidden City in 1925, shortly after the expulsion of the last emperor of China. In the final years of the Chinese Civil War the most prized items in the museum’s collection were moved to Taiwan. By the time the items arrived in Taiwan, the communist army had already seized control of the Palace Museum.