The Bolt Photo: Xiong Yuqing/GT

The exhibition Ten Masterpieces of French Painting is being showcased at the National Museum of China until June 16 as one of the key events celebrating the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between France and China.

Collected from the Louvre Museum, Versailles Museum, Orsay Museum, Picasso Museum and National Museum of Modern Art, the 10 paintings on show are all top level masterpieces in different genres. According to Chen Lüsheng, a deputy director of the National Museum of China, this is the first time that five French national museums have cooperated together for an exhibition overseas.

It is also the first time that all these precious works have been displayed in China, no easy task considering their value. For example, in order for the The Bolt (by Jean-Honore Fragonard, 1777) to join the exhibition the agreement had to be signed by the President of France himself.

"Human relationships are a key theme of the exhibit, such as the connection between father and son in Saint Joseph Carpenter (by Georges de La Tour, 1642), between lovers in The Bolt, between friends in Reading the Letter (by Pablo Picasso, 1921) and among friends getting together in Dance at Le moulin de la Galette (by Auguste Renoir, 1876)," said French curator Cecile Maisonneuve.

Two paintings by Picasso, Reading the Letter and The Matador (1970), demonstrate how this great genius' art style changed over the course of 50 years. Meanwhile, two of impressionism master Auguste Renoir's best-known pieces, Dance at Le moulin de la Galette and The Swing (1876), present the fantastic skills that the artist used in portraying the movement of characters in the paintings.

Two royal portraits, Francios I of France (1520) by Jean Clouet and Portrait of King Louis XIV of France at age of 63 (1702) by Hyacinthe Rigaud, both show delicate classical artistic details. Compostition with Three Figures (by Fernand Leger, 1932) presents a contrast between brightness and darkness in modern art.

"We chose most of the great works painted by artists who are very well-known in China, such as Picasso and Renoir, and hoped they could also bring audiences to come see some of the artists Chinese people are not that familiar with," Maisonneuve told the Global Times.