DgcityFive thousand years of earrings, pendants, belts and royal ornaments are coming to Shanghai. The Shanghai Museum said it will open a free exhibition organized with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, titled Jewelry: The Body Transformed, at its East branch on Century Avenue from Nov 18 through May 5, 2027.
The Met’s jewelry holdings rank among the broadest anywhere, and the Shanghai show will draw 192 items and sets from that collection. Rather than presenting one regional tradition, the objects travel from ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome and Byzantium through the Islamic world, Central Asia, India, the Americas and modern Europe. The point is to show how widely the human impulse to decorate the body is shared, and how differently it has been expressed.
The Shanghai Museum is adding a Chinese thread of its own, selecting more than 20 ancient pieces to sit alongside the New York loans. They include bronze belt ornaments from the Western Han Dynasty of 206 BC to AD 24, agate and crystal pieces from the Liao Dynasty of 916 to 1125, and gem-set gold belt ornaments from the Ming Dynasty of 1368 to 1644.
The exhibition is arranged in six themed sections that examine jewelry’s relationship with the body. Personal adornment is treated not simply as decoration but as a marker of religious belief, of power and status, and at times of female agency. Visitors will encounter wig rings that belonged to the ancient Egyptian princess Sithathoryunet, European royal jewelry sets from the 18th century, and an ant-shaped bracelet made in 1976.
For Chinese museumgoers, the show continues a run of major international collaborations at Shanghai Museum East, the large riverside extension that has become the city’s flagship venue for blockbusters. The free-admission model is also significant: major loan exhibitions in China and abroad often carry premium ticket prices, and the museum said entry here will be free throughout the run.
The display opens as Shanghai enters a busy cultural season, with new art exhibitions and performances scheduled across the city through winter. Jewelry: The Body Transformed runs for nearly six months, giving visitors a long window to see works that rarely leave New York alongside Chinese pieces selected specifically for this presentation.
