Martinez also mentions more exchanges involving museum personnel and scholars.

He hopes for more cooperation with Chinese museums in preserving cultural heritage.

Eternal Sites: From Bamiyan to Palmyra, an exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris that ended on Jan 9, showed virtual reconstructions of World Heritage sites destroyed by conflicts in western Asia.

The show supported by UNESCO displayed artifacts from featured locations that are now in the Louvre's collection. Martinez served as the general curator.

He believes it's the duty of France's public museums to safeguard cultural heritage and hopes the exhibition can run in China.

Meanwhile, the Louvre will present Masterpieces from the Leiden Collection: The Age of Rembrandt, an exhibition of 17th-century Dutch paintings from a private New York-based collection, from February to May.

Amassed by American entrepreneur Thomas Kaplan and his wife, Daphne Recanati Kaplan, the collection is hailed as one of the largest private holdings of Rembrandt.

It's reported that the works will later travel to Shanghai's Long Museum and the National Museum of China.

If you go

9 am-5 pm, closed on Mondays, through March 31. 16 East Chang'an Avenue, Dongcheng district, Beijing. 010-6511-6400.