Masterpieces of Chinese Painting 700 - 1900: About the Exhibition

Anonymous, Apsaras, c.700-800, Musée Guimet, France © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée Guimet, Paris) / P. Pleynet

26 October 2013 - 19 January 2014

Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Presenting one of the world’s greatest artistic traditions, Masterpieces of Chinese Painting 700 - 1900 will be a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see rare surviving works of art drawn from collections around the world. Explore over 70 of the finest examples of Chinese painting, from small-scale intimate works by monks and literati through to a 14 metre-long scroll painting, many of which are shown together for the first time.

Charting the evolving styles and subjects of painting over a 1200 year period, the exhibition includes figure paintings on silk for religious sites, landscape painting and the introduction of Western influences. A significant number of these masterpieces have never been exhibited in the UK before, from banners, albums and scrolls created for a variety of settings to the materials that reveal the traditional process and techniques of painting on silk.