The Uffizi Galleries and the National Art Museum of China bring 36 Italian Renaissance originals to Beijing for the first time.

This is not a routine loan exhibition. From Botticelli to Caravaggio, this 150-year span is the most-cited bracket in the history of Western art. Leonardo's drawings, Michelangelo's drawings, Raphael's portraits, Botticelli's Madonnas, Titian's Flora, Caravaggio's knight — these names collectively constitute the entirety of most people's mental image of what a great painting is. Right now, they are all in the same building at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing.

Three Chapters, One Historical Arc

Hall 5 · Chapter One: The Awakening of Humanism (14th—15th century)

Botticelli's Madonna and Child is the starting point — painted nearly twenty years before The Birth of Venus, less technically mature, yet already carrying that characteristic melancholy in the Madonna's face. In religious iconography, it's called foreknowledge of the Passion: she already knows what will happen to this child. Early Renaissance painting's revolution was making God wear a human expression.

Hall 3 · Chapter Two: The Three Giants (c. 1500—1520)

Leonardo's Knight, Centaur and Soldiers in Battle dates to around 1504 — a preparatory study for his Battle of Anghiari, a fresco that ultimately failed, was painted over, and no longer exists. This drawing is one of the most complete surviving studies from that project. Michelangelo's The Abduction of Ganymede dates to around 1533, drawn as a private gift for a close friend, depicting the Greek myth of Zeus-as-eagle seizing the beautiful youth. Raphael's Portrait of a Young Man with an Apple dates to around 1505, when he was 22, less than two years into his time in Florence.

Three works, created within thirty years of each other, by artists who were essentially crossing paths in the same city. Florence around 1505 was the highest-density moment in the history of Western art.

Hall 7 · Chapter Three: The Venetian School and the Caravaggio Revolution (16th—early 17th century)

Titian's Flora and Tintoretto's Leda and the Swan represent the Venetian School's revolution of color — not drawing shapes with outlines and filling them in, but constructing space and texture through light and pigment itself.

Caravaggio's Portrait of Antonio Martelli, Knight of Malta is the last work in the exhibition — and the pivot point of the entire narrative. Look at the painting: a single raking light strikes the old knight's face; everything else falls into near-absolute black. No idealized features, no dignified pose — just a man who actually existed, staring back at you, his gaze undiminished across 400 years. The Renaissance gave painting the ideal human. Caravaggio gave it back the real one. A single light source, near-black backgrounds, unsparing faces, the psychological weight of a single frozen instant — these were the moves that carried Western painting from the Renaissance into the Baroque. His followers spread across 17th-century Europe; you can find his shadow in Rubens, Velázquez, and Rembrandt.

Visitor Information

Location: National Art Museum of China, Halls 3, 5, and 7 on the first floor. 1 Wusi Street, Dongcheng District, Beijing
Dates: April 28 to August 28, 2026
Hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 9:00–17:00 (last entry 16:00); closed Mondays except public holidays
Tickets: Full price ¥120 / Concession ¥60 (available on Damai or the museum's official mini-program)