Precious best placed into the safest hands

"It was a mammoth task to convince every one of them to part for six months with what in many cases are their most-treasured exhibits in their collections," says Qian, who, with Sun, visited many of the contributing museums in 2014 and 2015.

While most of the museums approached were delighted that they would be showing at such a prestigious venue - Some who were unable to take part expressed regret, Qian says - others were reluctant upon hearing that it was only a few items among their collection that the Met was interested in showing. "They wanted to have the spotlight on themselves," she says.

In fact, Qian believes that one of the biggest factors behind the successful mounting of the exhibition is the strong support at government level.

"Art Exhibitions China is directly under the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, a governmental organization that has the final say over all matters concerning any antique, including its departure from the country.

"The fact that the Chinese Cultural Minister Luo Shugang attended the opening ceremony of the Met show in itself says a lot. It may also be worth mentioning that Henry Kissinger, national security adviser and secretary of state under president Richard Nixon, and who played a vital role in normalizing relations between China and the US, is a trustee emeritus of the Metropolitan Museum."

Sun joined Qian in emphasizing state-level collaboration.

"The US-China Consultation on People to People Exchanges, co-sponsored by the US State Department and China's State Council, lent tremendous support to the exhibition," he says.

According to Sun, in 2013, Cai Wu, then Chinese minister of culture, observed that the Metropolitan Museum had held more exhibitions from China than any other institution in the world.

"Without Art Exhibitions China's indispensable assistance with communication, coordination and assembling the art works, none of the exhibitions would have been possible," says the curator who joined the Met in 1999, and who is adamant about his own role.

"The underlying exhibition concept and the selection of artworks to realize that conception belong to the curator and the curatorial team," he says.

Qian, for her part, believes that the Art Exhibitions China team also put its stamp on the final show. "For one reason or another, nearly one third of the exhibits appearing in the initial list the Met gave us had to be changed. Some objects were too fragile or too precious to leave the country, and others were being studied by historians and conservationists and were thus unavailable.