National Gallery of Victoria, St Kilda Rd, Melbourne

Closes June 21, open daily, except Tuesdays, 10am-5pm

As a frequent visitor to Beijing, I adopted a somewhat blase attitude when I saw the billing for a major exhibition from Beijing's Palace Museum in the Forbidden City.

The exhibition changed my attitude instantly, displaying items which I had never seen before with an ambience that was magical. The exhibition has a wonderful sense of silence and a peace.

The Qianlong Emperor's 60-year reign (1736-1795) corresponded to a period of wealth and stability for China and an amalgamation of several cultural and artistic traditions. The emperor sought to retain and foster his Manchu warrior-huntsman heritage, but also grafted onto this the whole Confucian tradition with which the great majority of his subjects were familiar. He studied Chinese painting, loved calligraphy and was a prolific poet and writer with more than 40,000 poems and some 1300 pieces of prose attributed to him.

The emperor also had a passion for collecting art, not only Chinese and Mongolian art, but also Japanese, Indian and European art. It is within this milieu that the remarkable Italian Jesuit, Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766), a missionary in China, became a painter at the Imperial Court operating under the name of Lang Shining. He was an instant hit with the emperor. Recording both the emperor and empress in portraits, he left a vivid impression of his age.

The exhibition is dominated by Lang Shining's paintings, which blend European artistic conventions, Chinese techniques and subject matter and a very personal and idiosyncratic treatment of the figure, surfaces and space. When you stare into his portraits of the emperor you become aware of the absence of shadow, which in a curious way flattens the face, but the linear articulation allows it to stand out against the background. Emperor Qianlong apparently thought that shadows looked like dirt on the face and the artist complied with the wishes of his patron. This influential Jesuit, during his half century in Beijing, also had a profound impact on architecture, the art collection as well as a gradual Westernisation of Chinese art during the 18th century.

The exhibition is small enough to have a sense of intimacy - we are not mesmerised with hundreds of objects all screaming for our attention - but it is large enough, (about 120 objects) to create an intelligent context within which to contemplate the art. Sumptuous silk court robes, a throne made out of antler horns, weapons and other objects with inlaid precious stones, as well as the large array of monumental paintings on silk and paper are some of the highlights.

I have rarely seen this temporary exhibition space look so good: it is not a cavernous hollow with objects strung along the walls, nor a crowded jamboree with numerous competing stalls.

A Golden Age of China: Qianlong Emperor is a rare gem of an exhibition which in a beautiful and unexpected manner reveals the pomp, glory and cultural enlightenment of the wealthiest and most populous country of the 18th century.