A total of 86 paintings, sculptures and tapestries of Italian
Renaissance masters arrived in Beijing Sunday to make their debut
in the country, signaling the start of the 2006 Italian Culture
Year in China.
The masterpieces will be on display at an exhibition titled
"Italian Renaissance Art" at the Millennium World Art Museum of the
Millennium Monument in southwestern Beijing from Jan. 14 to April
23.
Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Titian are among the masters
whose works are to light up Beijing's bleak winter with the
brilliance of Renaissance art, reported Monday's China
Daily.
A Portrait of a Young Lady by Peiro Pollaiuolo, valued
at 500 million yuan(US$61.9 million), was the first artwork to
be taken out of dozens of boxes that traveled 10,000 kilometers
under strict security from museums in Florence, Italy.
"In Florence, the artworks are spread out in many museums, but
in Beijing they are brought together for the grandest show ever
held in China," said Wang Limei, director of the Millennium
Museum.
The collection, which would make "even Florentines jealous," is
on loan from 12 museums in Florence, Wang said.
The art on display was created over a span of six centuries,
between the Proto-Renaissance -- the first rays of Renaissance in
the late 13th century during the High Medieval Age -- and the
Baroque to the mid-18th century, said the newspaper.
After the Renaissance art show, the Italian Culture Year in
China will feature dozens of events, such as the exhibition of
avant-garde art from Venice Biennale at the National Museum of
China, and the performance of the La Scala opera house of Milan in
Beijing and Shanghai, according to Li Shaoping, an official with
the Chinese Ministry of Culture.
(Xinhua News Agency January 16, 2006)
