NEW YORK - China’s Neolithic cultures to the twentieth-century ink revival—Chinese Art in America traces both the history of Chinese art and its reception in the United States. Drawn from distinguished private collections, the works on view reflect generations of passion, scholarship, and connoisseurship, celebrating the individuals whose vision brought Chinese art into American collections and cultural consciousness.

Ancient jades, ritual bronzes, ceramics, and paintings were collected, studied, and championed by a network of collectors and dealers who, from the nineteenth century onward, shaped American taste and understanding of Chinese art. Former stewards represented here include figures such as President Herbert Hoover and John Pierpont Morgan, as well as pioneering dealers such as C. T. Loo, who helped establish a market for Chinese art in the United States.

Museums and their curators played a pivotal role in defining the field. Institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Cleveland Museum of Art advanced the study of Chinese art through ambitious acquisitions, landmark exhibitions, and rigorous scholarship. Several works in this exhibition were formerly owned by, or previously exhibited at, these institutions—testament to their early leadership and enduring commitment. Through such stewardship, they established standards of connoisseurship and secured a lasting legacy for Chinese art in America.

Among the exhibition’s most important works, highlights in the exhibition include a large and extremely rare archaic bronze ritual food vessel (Ding) from the late Shang / early western Zhou dynasty, representing one of the most significant products of the Bronze Age in China. Formerly in the collection of Geneva-based collector and dealer Edward T. Chow (1910–1980), one of the most prominent figures in the postwar Chinese art scene, the ding later entered the collection of notable New York-based artist, collector and connoisseur C. C. Wang (Wang Jiqian, 1907–2003), who played a formative role in the appreciation and understanding of classical Chinese paintings in America.

A large and extremely rare archaic bronze ritual food vessel (Ding), Early Western Zhou dynasty © Sotheby's 2026

Equally noteworthy, the exhibition also includes a large and rare blue and white ‘lotus’ meiping from the Yuan dynasty. Brilliantly painted in cobalt of vibrant sapphire-blue tones, this celebrated vase was formerly in the collection of noted collector Sir Harry Garner (1891-1977) who donated much of his collection to the British and Victoria and Albert Museums in London. Included in several seminal exhibitions, this meiping has contributed much to our understanding and appreciation of Yuan ceramics.

Another exceptional work in the exhibition is an imperial court portrait of Fu Heng, attributed to Ai Qimeng (1708-1780) and Jin Tingbiao (fl. 1757-1767). This extraordinary painting, steeped in history, celebrates the valor of Fu Heng (1720-70), Chief Grand Councilor to the Qianlong Emperor (r. 1736-95) and pivotal figure in the history of the Qing Dynasty. Painted in the Imperial Workshop in Beijing, this masterpiece is the only remaining portrait of Fu Heng and bears the seals of the Qianlong Emperor. In 1755, Fu Heng had been the only one of the Emperor’s advisers who argued for the campaign in eastern Turkestan (1755-59). This bitter war, culminating in a three-month long siege by the Kara Usu river near Yarkand in the winter of 1758, only ended following a victory at Qurman in February of the next year. The subsequent conquest of numerous cities was the first step in the eventual establishment of Xinjiang (lit. ‘New Territory’) province and was grounds for enormous victory celebrations back in Beijing where this painting was commissioned. Above the portrait, on yellow silk, lies the shitang (lit. ‘poetry hall’) on which a eulogy is inscribed on the right in Chinese kaishu (standard script) calligraphy and again in Manchu, on the left. Where the two inscriptions meet, one finds an imperial seal: ‘A treasure admired by his Majesty the Qianlong Emperor’ (Qianlong yulan zhi bao).

An imperial court portrait of Fu Heng, attributed to Ai Qimeng (1708-1780) and Jin Tingbiao (fl. 1757-1767), Qing dynasty, Qianlong period, dating 1760 © Sotheby's 2026

Bringing the narrative into the present, center in the exhibition is Floating Cloud, a monumental ink painting by the contemporary ink artist Liu Dan (b. 1953) in 2004. One of the most accomplished contemporary ink artists today, Liu Dan's meditations on scholars’ rocks reignite the ancient fascination with these microcosms of nature’s majesty. In this work, he reimagines such objects in a contemporary style and scale while remaining firmly anchored in the discipline of traditional ink practice. Despite its meticulously observed, hyperrealistic style, Liu Dan strips the floating cloud of its natural context, elevating it simultaneously to the status of a scholar’s rock, a jade mountain, and a weightless cloud. With every ridge and cove rendered in remarkable detail and at monumental scale, the result is an image that, while strikingly contemporary, remains palpably reminiscent of the visual language of classical Chinese landscape painting. Once a highlight of the Jiansongge Collection, Floating Cloud achieved the second-highest auction price for the artist in these rooms at the time of its sale in 2015.

Liu Dan (b. 1953),  Floating Cloud, 2004 © Sotheby's 2026