Precious best placed into the safest hands

Those who put China's historic treasures on display have a delicate task as they prepare them to be exhibited

Qian Wei of Art Exhibitions China, who was closely involved in the blockbuster show Age of Empires at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York last year, says that throughout the show she was more impressed by the installation and withdrawal of the exhibits than by anything else.

"For me, those are the parts where the professionalism of the Met staff crystallized," she says, referring to the show that put on view nearly 300 pieces of unearthed treasures from the Qin and Han dynasties (221 BC-220 AD). It drew more than 355,000 visitors between April and July.