Shanghai Daily News

The Shanghai Museum is saving its best show of the year for last.

An exhibition featuring more than 100 precious artworks, some of them on loan from the Palace Museum in Beijing, will start from December 30.

"It is the star show on this year's list," said museum spokesman Li Feng. "Some items in the show have never been unveiled to the public before."

About 67 traditional ink-wash paintings and 36 calligraphy works selected from the collections of the Shanghai Museum and the Palace Museum, are expected to attract a big number of visitors.

"To some extent, they cover the history of Chinese painting and calligraphy before the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368)," said museum Curator Chen Xiejun. "For example, the earliest Chinese calligraphy dates back to the Western Jin Dynasty (265-316 AD), and this is the first time that it has left the Forbidden City in Beijing."

According to Chen, this calligraphy work will only be shown to the public for the first week of the exhibit due to security concerns.

Museum employees are still working out a security plan for the exhibition, and 61 items on loan from the Palace Museum haven't arrived at the museum.