'Forbidden City' treasures revealed at Metropolitan Museum of Art

(Dennis Helmar, courtesy of the Palace Museum.)

More than 90 lavish objects are displayed in the The Emperor's Private Paradise: Treasures from the Forbidden City, at New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art from February 1 through May 1.

Murals, paintings, furniture, porcelain, gilt and jade decorative works, and architecture -never before seen by the public - are taken from the two-acre residence and gardens of the Qianlong Emperor of China's last dynasty, created in 1771 and shuttered in 1924.

Forbidden City is part of a larger show, Summer of China, which also includes Extravagant Display: Chinese Art in the 18th and 19th Centuries.

Organized by the World Monuments Fund and Peabody Essex Museum in Massachusetts, the exhibition will travel next to the Milwaukee Art Museum in June before returning to the Palace Museum in Beijing.

http://www.metmuseum.org

RC