The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City is presenting a landmark exhibition of ancient Chinese art and culture -- one of the largest ever held in the United States -- with spectacular treasures on loan from across the Chinese mainland.

    The exhibition, entitled China: Dawn of a Golden Age, 200-750 AD, opened on October 12 and runs through January 23, 2005. It has already attracted tens of thousands of visitors to the world-famous museum.

    It brings together more than 300 works of extreme rarity and historical importance, some of which have never before been exhibited outside China, and tells the story of Chinese art and culture from the late Han (206 BC-AD 220) to Tang (AD 618-907) dynasties.

    "It is indeed a great privilege for the Metropolitan Museum to present this breathtaking assemblage of treasures from China, and particularly now, as new scholarship and recent archaeological finds warrant a full-scale cultural reassessment of the late Han to high Tang periods," said Philippe de Montebello, director of the museum.

    Most of the objects in the exhibition have been excavated in the past 30 years.

    "The recent finds on view lead us to consider this period not as a 'dark age' following the collapse of the Han empire, but rather as a time of massive influx of foreign ideas that invigorated Chinese culture and laid the foundation for glorious artistic achievements during the Tang Dynasty," said Montebello.

    The exhibits are in a wide variety of media, including jade, bronze, gold, silver, metal, stone and wood, as well as textiles, works on paper and wall paintings. They range in size from an enormous sculpture of a mythical beast to a small gold coin.

    Highlights include a set of 14 bronze cavalry and charioteer figures arranged in the formation of an official procession; some of the most famous early Chinese Buddhist sculptures; and luxury articles of glass and precious metals imported from Western and Central Asia during the 4th to the 6th centuries.

    The exhibits were assembled from 46 Chinese museums and cultural institutions in 14 provinces and municipalities, according to Shan Jixiang, director general of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage of China.

    The exhibition's success has also aroused complicated feelings among Chinese museum professionals. Chen Yu, a curator with the National Museum in Beijing, said: "We rarely curate exhibitions in such an encyclopedic way in China. Most of our exhibitions include relics in the collection of only one museum, or museums in one province."

    While the national museum might have the capacity to present a comprehensive exhibition like the one at the Met, there are a number of complications. Said Chen, "To present such an encyclopedic exhibition, a museum needs much time, money and -- especially -- strong coordination to make sure the loans can be obtained from so many museums around China."