Slideshow: a preview of “The Forbidden City,” the ROM’s new exhibition of artifacts from China’s imperial palace

As part of the ROM’s centenary, the museum is renewing its Far East focus by bringing in an extensive collection of over 200 artifacts from Beijing’s Palace Museum—some of which have never left China before. Dubbed "The Forbidden City: Inside the court of China’s emperors,” the exhibition documents a strange 500-year period for China, during which only the emperor’s family and servants were allowed inside the walls of the world’s largest imperial palace.

Visitors can expect to be led through representations of various layers of the imperial complex, where they’ll be able to ogle increasingly rare objects, ending with items from the emperor’s personal chamber. There will be an imperial throne from the Qing dynasty, a porcelain cup from the Ming dynasty, and even a golden-fringed robe worn by Puyi, the palace’s final inhabitant and the subject of Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1987 film The Last Emperor. Here, a look at some of the artifacts that will be on display as part of the exhibition, which opens on Saturday, March 8.