The 2025 exhibition “Une Passion Chinoise: La Collection de Monsieur Thiers”) at the Louvre marks the most significant China-related exhibition since 2011, when the museum collaborated with the Palace Museum in Beijing on “La Cité interdite au Louvre” (The Forbidden City at the Louvre). While the 2011 show centered on imperial treasures from Beijing, the Thiers exhibition highlights 19th-century French collecting of Chinese art, offering a complementary perspective on Sino-European encounters.

Invited by Jean-Baptiste Clais, Conservateur en chef of the Department of Decorative Arts (Asia & Porcelains Collections) at the Louvre, I not only contributed the essay “Sur le Fleuve, le Jour de la Fête de Qingming” to the exhibition catalogue, but was also invited to deliver a lecture of the same title at the Musée national des Arts asiatiques – Guimet on May 19, 2025.