Art lovers in Beijing are being offered the chance to get a closer look at treasures from France's Louvre – one of the oldest museums in the world – until March 31.
A collection of 126 art treasures from the Louvre Museum, including sculptures, paintings, cultural relics and handicrafts, are on display at the Invention of Louvre exhibition that opened at the National Museum of China on Friday.
The artworks represent thousands of years of creativity, from ancient Egypt to the 19th century.
The Invention of Louvre exhibition is divided into five parts, based on the 800-year-old history of the Louvre, taking visitors on a journey showing how the museum developed from a royal palace featuring mainly royal collections into an internationally popular grand museum today.
Over 70 percent of the Louvre's visitors are from places outside France, the museum's curator, Jean-Luc Martinez, is quoted in the introduction to the exhibition.
"Over the past decades, more and more Chinese have visited the Louvre and parts of the Louvre collections are now sent to China regularly to meet Chinese audiences," he wrote. "Through the Invention of Louvre exhibition, visitors will be able to review the development of the Louvre over the past eight centuries."
