Unprecedented demand in Shanghai for Monet exhibition

Photo taken on March 8, 2014 shows China's largest ever show of works by French Impressionist Claude Monet in Shanghai.

In Shanghai, hundreds of art lovers lined up at a downtown shopping mall on Saturday to get a glimpse of works by French Impressionist Claude Monet, as the country's biggest ever exhibition of his paintings has just opened.

By 2 o'clock Saturday afternoon, the screen inside the K11 shopping center on Huaihai Road showed more than 2,000 people had already entered the exhibition, and 800 were waiting in line. Tickets are limited to two per person.

"I came from Hangzhou and arrived just in the morning. I will have to wait for more than three hours. But it's worthwhile." Visitor Wen Yue said.

The 40 original Monets include the artist's childhood cartoons and paintings from the last 40 years of life when he lived and worked at Giverny. The 2-meter tall "Water Lilies" series and 3-meter-long Wisteria are the largest Monet paintings that have ever come to the mainland.

"There is not only one Monet, there are several Monets in perpetual evolution. So they discover the very beginning of impressionism, then the garden of Giverny, and then the final works. All of them are different. And it is representative of what is one of the most important French painters in art history." Marianne Mathieu, asst. director of Marmottan Monet Museum, said.