A close-up of The Flight into Egypt painted by early 20th century Chinese painters Ren Yifang Photo: Wang Qi/GT

An exhibition of 78 valuable Chinese artworks from the Vatican Museums collection and 12 from Beijing's Palace Museum collection kicked off at the Palace Museum on Tuesday. "Beauty unites us: Chinese art from the Vatican Museums" will last until July 14.

This is the first time that the Vatican Museums have brought Chinese artworks back to China for an exhibition. Roughly 5,000 artworks from China are in the Vatican Museums collection, a portion of which were collected by missionaries.

The 78 artworks are divided into three themes - Catholic art, Buddhist art and worldly art. An interesting facet of the Chinese artworks is how the works depicting Catholic religious themes make use of Chinese aesthetics and traditional Chinese forms of expression.

In these works, well-known Catholic figures appear Chinese and wear Chinese style clothing. This religious imagery proved so popular that Chinese craftsmen began to use images from religious stories and Western churches as decorations on traditional Chinese wares during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

Visitors to the exhibit will be able to see Chinese depictions of The Last Supper and The Flight into Egypt painted by early 20^th century Chinese painters Wang Suda and Ren Yifang.   

The 12 artworks from the Palace Museum collection also play into the themes of the exhibition to pay respect to cultural exchanges. For example, paintings by Italian Catholic missionary Giuseppe Castiglione are also on display. Castiglione, whose Chinese name was Lang Shining, came to China in 1715 and eventually became a court painter specializing in traditional Chinese painting.  

Among the items at the exhibition, some are gifts exchanged between China and the Vatican over the past several hundred years. The aim of the exhibition is to allow visitors to appreciate the beauty of artworks created through the harmonious communication of different civilizations.