A Man of Contradictions, With a Collection to Match
Things have changed. China, now (and not for the first time) a global power in need of an agreeable self-image to sell, has seen the wisdom of preserving its visual heritage — all of it. And international scholars of that heritage, once separated by distance, are now thoroughly networked. A concrete result of this new one-worldism is a collaboration, now in progress, between the Palace Museum and the World Monuments Fund to restore the Qianlong Garden to its former splendor.