ART

Ancient and modern Chinese masterworks that have been hidden away in Beijing’s Forbidden City--and never seen in the United States--will tour five American cities for 10 months beginning in January. The exhibition of 76 works, which includes hand scrolls, album leaves and hanging scrolls, will visit museums in Honolulu, Atlanta, Cleveland, Minneapolis and New York to celebrate the 10th anniversary of restored relations between China and the United States. The assemblage is, “without a doubt, the finest exhibition of Chinese painting that has come from China since the resumption of relations,” said Richard M. Barnhart, the chairman of the art history department at Yale University. Pieces for the “Masterworks of Ming and Qing Painting from the Forbidden City” exhibition were selected by leading scholars from China and the United States as the finest examples of the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties.