The Guardians to the King: Terracotta Treasures from Ancient China exhibition showing until 2 November at the Castle Museum in Colchester represents a coup for Essex. It features some 43 pieces of a mini-terracotta army loaned by China's Xuzhou Museum in the Jiangsu province.
The ancient figurines, which include horses, soldiers, musicians and court officials, are smaller than the famous warriors of Xi'an, but they were excavated from a similarly spectacular tomb complex discovered in 1984 near the ancient city of Pengcheng. They were encased in jade suits, tied with gold plate and placed there more than 2,000 years ago to guard the King of Chu in his afterlife.
The figurines have only been out of China once before, and it is only because of a carefully nurtured relationship that Essex was able to persuade the Jiangsu province museum to loan some of its priceless exhibits to Colchester.
The relationship began when the department of education arranged teacher, then pupil exchanges, with the help of Essex's sizeable Chinese population. Now 60 Essex schools have twinning arrangements with counterparts in Jiangsu, and 13 have Mandarin on their curriculum.
Essex County Council decided that cultural links with China would lead to business opportunities for the county in China's fastest growing industrial area. Now exchanges are taking place in many fields.
"Essex County Council opened the door for us," says Colchester and Ipswich Museum Service manager Peter Berridge. "They did the initial brokering and gave us the platform to take things on. They also gave us the ability to attract sponsors."
Colchester's museums were also successful bidders for the British Council's Connections through Culture fund with its specific push for extending relations with China to coincide with the Olympics.
But establishing international relations is not always plain sailing. Sara Holdsworth, head of programmes at Manchester City Galleries, is currently involved in a project on the artist William Holman Hunt in collaboration with the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto - the exhibition William Holman Hunt and the Pre-Raphaelite Vision will open in Manchester on 11 October then go to Toronto next year. She says establishing international cooperation is hard work.
"In my experience, local authorities have lots of economic links, but extending those to cultural organisations is not the first thing they think of. Ideally, you'd want to have curators going out and developing international contacts. The willingness is there, but the money isn't. It is in London, but not in the regions. It's one of the missing dimensions."
Nick Dodd, chief executive of Sheffield Galleries and Museums Trust, agrees. "We don't do nearly enough forging of international relations," he says.
"Local government is very reluctant to let their officers go regularly to the Isle of Wight, let alone abroad. There needs to be frequent travel, a level of engagement and broader links. Local authorities are reluctant to devote scarce resources to sending a curator and staff out to places like China for something that may not see the light of day for years."
Elsewhere in Yorkshire, international links are paying off. Leeds has been twinned with Hangzhou - a city in the Chinese province of Zhejiang, famous for its tea and textiles - since 1988. Examples of Hangzhou silks have already been exhibited in Leeds, and the council is looking forward to 2012 when it hopes to export exhibitions to support the Olympics.
The regional museums that do well are often those that can make the most of a shared specialism. The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent, for example, has built relationships with other European museums from major ceramics producing towns in Hungary, Germany, Portugal, Italy and France as part of the EU's Culture 2000 project.
The museums collaborated on two exhibitions. The first one between 2001 and 2004 concerned a century of innovation in ceramics in Europe; the second exhibition, which began in 2004 and was completed this year, centred on the culture of ceramics within a town or country and the impact of its production on its people and designers. Both received funding from the Culture 2000 project.
In 2004 a delegation from Stoke-on-Trent city council visited Jingdezhen, the major porcelain-producing area of China, and a memorandum of understanding was signed. Andrew Watts, now assistant collections officer at the Potteries Museum, represented Stoke's museums there and was able to establish a friendly museum deal with the region. According to Watts, Stoke council realises that a worldwide profile is vital to its reputation.
"If there were no international cultural links, the knowledge of Stoke as the mother town of ceramics in the western hemisphere would fade. That would have economic repercussions. There are 150 million middle-class Chinese waiting to buy ceramics."
The cost of putting on exhibitions involving loaned items from abroad is high. Budgets need to include any rental fees, staging, removals, insurance, conservation, handling, customs, publications, marketing and bureaucratic costs. As a result it has increasingly become the practice to establish a touring potential, for which international networks are vital, before arranging major exhibitions.
One of the reasons why Colchester fared so well in its negotiations with Xuzhou Museum is that it has plenty to offer in return with its Roman heritage. The Han dynasty in which the terracotta figurines were crafted coincided with the Roman empire; the Castle Museum even has some fragments of silk garments excavated from a Roman grave that had made their way down the silk route from China.
The exhibition has been a great success. Visitor figures for August are up 40 per cent on last year. "It's been a transformation," says museum manager Berridge. "It has moved us up to the next level. Now we'll be able to attract major sponsors, giving us a strong platform for 2012."
On the other hand, even large cities such as Glasgow have found they don't have the money to foster the kind of international links that would enable them to stage the kind of exhibitions they would like. Mark O'Neill, head of museums and galleries at Culture and Sport Glasgow, believes museums and galleries like his are not being served by central government.
"If we had the money, we'd want a mixture of our own collections and items from other countries. This would give us lots of value in terms of audience development, research and conservation of our own collection.
"But I don't see it's entirely a local authority responsibility. I'd see it as a national responsibility, given the emphasis on cultural diplomacy. It would be nice to have a central fund for culture that we could bid for."
Bob Chaudy is a freelance journalist
The ancient figurines, which include horses, soldiers, musicians and court officials, are smaller than the famous warriors of Xi'an, but they were excavated from a similarly spectacular tomb complex discovered in 1984 near the ancient city of Pengcheng. They were encased in jade suits, tied with gold plate and placed there more than 2,000 years ago to guard the King of Chu in his afterlife.
The figurines have only been out of China once before, and it is only because of a carefully nurtured relationship that Essex was able to persuade the Jiangsu province museum to loan some of its priceless exhibits to Colchester.
The relationship began when the department of education arranged teacher, then pupil exchanges, with the help of Essex's sizeable Chinese population. Now 60 Essex schools have twinning arrangements with counterparts in Jiangsu, and 13 have Mandarin on their curriculum.
Essex County Council decided that cultural links with China would lead to business opportunities for the county in China's fastest growing industrial area. Now exchanges are taking place in many fields.
"Essex County Council opened the door for us," says Colchester and Ipswich Museum Service manager Peter Berridge. "They did the initial brokering and gave us the platform to take things on. They also gave us the ability to attract sponsors."
Colchester's museums were also successful bidders for the British Council's Connections through Culture fund with its specific push for extending relations with China to coincide with the Olympics.
But establishing international relations is not always plain sailing. Sara Holdsworth, head of programmes at Manchester City Galleries, is currently involved in a project on the artist William Holman Hunt in collaboration with the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto - the exhibition William Holman Hunt and the Pre-Raphaelite Vision will open in Manchester on 11 October then go to Toronto next year. She says establishing international cooperation is hard work.
"In my experience, local authorities have lots of economic links, but extending those to cultural organisations is not the first thing they think of. Ideally, you'd want to have curators going out and developing international contacts. The willingness is there, but the money isn't. It is in London, but not in the regions. It's one of the missing dimensions."
Nick Dodd, chief executive of Sheffield Galleries and Museums Trust, agrees. "We don't do nearly enough forging of international relations," he says.
"Local government is very reluctant to let their officers go regularly to the Isle of Wight, let alone abroad. There needs to be frequent travel, a level of engagement and broader links. Local authorities are reluctant to devote scarce resources to sending a curator and staff out to places like China for something that may not see the light of day for years."
Elsewhere in Yorkshire, international links are paying off. Leeds has been twinned with Hangzhou - a city in the Chinese province of Zhejiang, famous for its tea and textiles - since 1988. Examples of Hangzhou silks have already been exhibited in Leeds, and the council is looking forward to 2012 when it hopes to export exhibitions to support the Olympics.
The regional museums that do well are often those that can make the most of a shared specialism. The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent, for example, has built relationships with other European museums from major ceramics producing towns in Hungary, Germany, Portugal, Italy and France as part of the EU's Culture 2000 project.
The museums collaborated on two exhibitions. The first one between 2001 and 2004 concerned a century of innovation in ceramics in Europe; the second exhibition, which began in 2004 and was completed this year, centred on the culture of ceramics within a town or country and the impact of its production on its people and designers. Both received funding from the Culture 2000 project.
In 2004 a delegation from Stoke-on-Trent city council visited Jingdezhen, the major porcelain-producing area of China, and a memorandum of understanding was signed. Andrew Watts, now assistant collections officer at the Potteries Museum, represented Stoke's museums there and was able to establish a friendly museum deal with the region. According to Watts, Stoke council realises that a worldwide profile is vital to its reputation.
"If there were no international cultural links, the knowledge of Stoke as the mother town of ceramics in the western hemisphere would fade. That would have economic repercussions. There are 150 million middle-class Chinese waiting to buy ceramics."
The cost of putting on exhibitions involving loaned items from abroad is high. Budgets need to include any rental fees, staging, removals, insurance, conservation, handling, customs, publications, marketing and bureaucratic costs. As a result it has increasingly become the practice to establish a touring potential, for which international networks are vital, before arranging major exhibitions.
One of the reasons why Colchester fared so well in its negotiations with Xuzhou Museum is that it has plenty to offer in return with its Roman heritage. The Han dynasty in which the terracotta figurines were crafted coincided with the Roman empire; the Castle Museum even has some fragments of silk garments excavated from a Roman grave that had made their way down the silk route from China.
The exhibition has been a great success. Visitor figures for August are up 40 per cent on last year. "It's been a transformation," says museum manager Berridge. "It has moved us up to the next level. Now we'll be able to attract major sponsors, giving us a strong platform for 2012."
On the other hand, even large cities such as Glasgow have found they don't have the money to foster the kind of international links that would enable them to stage the kind of exhibitions they would like. Mark O'Neill, head of museums and galleries at Culture and Sport Glasgow, believes museums and galleries like his are not being served by central government.
"If we had the money, we'd want a mixture of our own collections and items from other countries. This would give us lots of value in terms of audience development, research and conservation of our own collection.
"But I don't see it's entirely a local authority responsibility. I'd see it as a national responsibility, given the emphasis on cultural diplomacy. It would be nice to have a central fund for culture that we could bid for."
Bob Chaudy is a freelance journalist
Funding and help
British Council: www.britishcouncil.org
European Union: ec.europa.eu/culture/index_en.htm
Touring Exhibitions Group: www.teg.org.uk
British Council: www.britishcouncil.org
European Union: ec.europa.eu/culture/index_en.htm
Touring Exhibitions Group: www.teg.org.uk
