The National Galleries of Scotland will lend around 60 artworks to China for a major exhibition in Shanghai in the summer of 2027, in one of the largest loans the institution has ever sent abroad. The show will draw on the Scottish national collection, with works by artists including Henry Raeburn, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Peter Paul Rubens.

The loan follows a letter of intent signed with Arts Exhibitions China and the World Expo Museum in Shanghai, the institutions that will host the exhibition. The agreement sets out a partnership that goes beyond a single show, with the two sides planning further cooperation around exhibitions, collections and research.

For the Scottish galleries, the loan is a chance to present the breadth of their collection to new audiences in China, where interest in European art remains strong. The selection spans portraits, landscapes and figure painting, and is designed to give visitors in Shanghai a sense of the collection's range rather than a single theme.

The exhibition is scheduled for summer 2027. Details of the full list of works and the exact dates are expected to follow as the partnership develops, but the scale of the loan already marks it as a significant moment for Scotland's national collection on the international stage. The National Galleries of Scotland hold one of the finest collections of European art in Britain, built up over two centuries and spanning the Renaissance to the present day. Sending a group of its works to Shanghai is part of a wider programme of international loans that has taken Scottish pictures to audiences in Europe, America and Asia.