Thousand-Li Rivers and Mountains – attributed to Wang Zhenpeng (detail) – Forbidden City, Beijing

On golden-brown silk, a dense panorama of mountains, rivers, towns and countless tiny figures is drawn in fine ink lines, behind the glass of the Hall of Paintings of the Palace Museum. Wang Zhenpeng, a renowned 14th-century painter of figures and architecture, is said to have painted his home region of Yongjia with its people in Mongol dress; the inscription was added later, but the scroll remains a precious monumental genre painting of the Yuan dynasty.