National Gallery director Dr Gabriele Finaldi said the collaboration had been two years in the making and it was a great opportunity to showcase the collection to an Asian audience because the institution had not mounted many travelling exhibitions.

“We’ve seen over the past 15 years growth in tourism to the UK, we’ve seen a lot of young people coming to school or university in Britain, a lot of visitors coming to visit our gallery,” Finaldi said on Tuesday.

“And that’s an audience that we’d like to get to know better and develop.”

He added that the gallery was “very keen to participate in” the Palace Museum’s international collaborations.

“The tour shows how the gallery continues to innovate in the way it designs and delivers partnerships, with the exhibition representing what is essentially the ‘National Gallery in miniature’,” he added.

Finaldi said the selection of paintings was representative of the institution’s history. It was designed to give “a concise and beautiful history of Western art as uniquely told by the National Gallery’s collection”.

Hong Kong marks the third and last stop in the exhibition’s Asia tour this year after Shanghai in mainland China and Seoul in South Korea.

The Shanghai show was the most popular fee-charging exhibition in the history of the National Gallery and pulled in more than 420,000 visitors in its 15-week run. The Seoul exhibition drew 360,000 visitors in nearly 18 weeks to October 9.

With a 20-week exhibition period in Hong Kong, Palace Museum director Louis Ng Chi-wa said he expected 300,000 visitors on the back of the coming peak tourist season over Christmas and major events such as Art Basel in March next year.

Master stroke: 52 famed paintings by European artists to go on show in Hong Kong

Asked about potential risks to paintings from a large number of visitors, he said: “The Palace Museum Hong Kong has always made the protection and security of relics and works of art our priority.”

There had been no damage to any exhibits since the museum opened, he noted.

“All 52 paintings here in Hong Kong are the crown jewels of the National Gallery. In the process of transporting and exhibiting the works, staff from both institutions have worked professionally to ensure the paintings will be protected.”

Finaldi did not reveal any future collaborations between the National Gallery and Hong Kong, but signalled other joint efforts might follow.

“This is our first encounter – I would say it’s extremely promising,” he said.

“I’m very impressed by the kind of curation of the exhibition that’s been done locally here in the Hong Kong Palace Museum.”

The artworks on show are divided into six sections, including Caravaggio’s Boy Bitten by a Lizard (about 1594-1595), Rembrandt’s Self Portrait at the Age of 63 (1669), and Monet’s Irises (about 1914-1917).

The Palace Museum organised the works according to themes such as mythology, landscapes and portraits, whereas the Shanghai and Seoul editions were presented chronologically.

Palace Museum curators also teamed up with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra to select pieces of music to accompany the exhibition.

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Standard tickets are priced at HK$150 (US$19.25) and concessionary ones at HK$75.

The exhibition is supported by the government’s Mega Arts and Cultural Events Fund, a new HK$1.4 billion scheme designed to bring major international events to Hong Kong and re-establish the city as a premier travel destination unveiled in Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu’s policy address last month.

Other events supported by the fund include the Art Basel and Art Central contemporary art fairs.

The National Gallery, founded almost 200 years ago, occupies a landmark building on London’s Trafalgar Square and its collection of art runs to about 2,300 paintings, some dating from the 13th century.