The permanent collection, which will be exhibited whole again in 2003, includes British portraiture from the 15th to 18th centuries, Neapolitan art from the late Renaissance, Chinese bronzes and British folk art.

BBC: Stone exhibit on a roll

Before Russian Socialist Realism took over as the new dogma in the early 1950s, the language of Chinese propaganda art drew its inspiration from folk tradition, an inexhaustible reservoir for Chinese art throughout the centuries.

CNN: ASIANOW - TIME Asia | Visions of China: China Art Gallery