An 11thth-centuary North Italian lion guards the entrance hall in the apartment of art dealer and collector Robert H Ellsworth, in Manhattans' Fifth Avenue. The panelling is made of Georgia pine, The carpet with dragon motif; it would have been wound around a pillar in an Imperial palace hall. When the two sides join the dragon's body becomes complete. The painting is from a set of 20th-centuary Chinese paintings; the rest, over 90 of them, are hanging in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York. USA