Principal charms

"The Chinese public's impression of Monaco used to be some scattered 'dots' about Grace Kelly or the eye-catching royal wedding in 2011," says Wang Yuegong, head of the royal artifact department at the Palace Museum. "This exhibition will connect all the dots with a single line."

Monaco signed a cooperation agreement with the Palace Museum in 2016.

As the first step in this collaborative process, The Forbidden City in Monaco, an exhibition which included about 180 artifacts from the Palace Museum, took place last year at the Grimaldi Forum, a convention center in Monte Carlo.

It gave a panoramic picture of imperial life during the reigns of Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong, three emperors ruling at the peak of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

"The event stirred huge public interest in Monaco," says Wang, who designed the exhibition. "It also prompted our Monegasque counterparts to return the favor by bringing a show to Beijing."

According to Wang, more than 50,000 people visited the exhibition at the Grimaldi Forum.

"And when I recently returned to Monaco on vacation and noticed that some of the paintings in museum were missing," Wang continues, "a staff member told me that they had been shipped abroad for an exhibition."