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Indeed, people will find Chinese chairs and other Oriental-motif decorations were an important part of home furnishing in 19th-century Europe in several watercolor paintings at Romantic Interiors, the concurrent show. The exhibition displays 72 works from the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York.

Leaving their homeland, Chinese chairs and ceramics were placed in an utterly different style of interiors, which featured bold designs, flashy colors and extravagant feelings.

The Oriental-themed decoration is one of the 10 sections at the exhibition to give a glimpse into the development of the home furnishing of Europe's upper-middle class two centuries ago. The paintings demonstrate how people applied Neoclassicism, Gothic, so-called Chinese style (actually a mix of Chinese, Egyptian, Japanese and Moorish elements) and aestheticism to polish the look of their living rooms, studies, libraries and bedrooms. They were painted by professionals, amateurs and housewives, and were passed along as heirlooms and gifts.

"We want to introduce the unique brushwork and enriched contents of watercolors as a distinctive genre of art that people know little about," says World Art Museum's director Wang Limei.

The watercolors are part of a donation from Eugene V. Thaw, a US art dealer, and his wife, Clare. The exhibition is the first cooperation between a Chinese museum and a Smithsonian museum. The World Art Museum hopes to display more collections of other member museums of the Smithsonian, which is said to be the world's largest museum and research complex.