This exceptional exhibition describes the golden age of travelling, when fine design and the art of living were an integral part of long distance trips to the four corners of the earth and especially the Far East! With more than 200 pieces comprising drawings, posters, models, furniture, costumes, illustrated books and photographs, this major exhibition is organised in a collaboration between the association “French Lines” and the Hong Kong Maritime Museum, which has been newly installed close to the Star Ferry, facing Victoria Harbour, the first major port in Asia that today is the third largest in the world. For nearly two hundred years ships have sailed the seven seas. Immense and majestic, they embodied innovation and industrial achievements, the world of galloping progress, and the splendour of the Western civilization in the triumphant 19th century. Through a tour organised in 3 sections: Invitation to Travel, Lifestyle Shipboard, History of the Messageries Maritimes Far-East lines, "Palaces on the Seas" focuses on two large French cruise liners: “Compagnie Générale Transatlantique” and “Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes”, both of which carried über-wealthy travellers that desired comfort, modernity and new horizons in the Far East. Keen to surprise and to satisfy their passengers, both liners asked renowned artists to develop their interiors. Architects and designers such as Dominique, Rulhmann, Lanel and Lalique, French Marine painters including Brenet and Sébille, poster designers Colin, Cassandre, and Sandy-Hook, and major French manufacturers Christofle, Ercuis, Puiforcat, St. Louis, and Haviland combined their creativity and skills for these floating palaces to remain unsurpassed. This extraordinary exhibition depicts a time when the highlife mingled in an artistic setting on a fun filled trip par excellence.About the exhibition With more than 200 pieces comprising drawings, posters, models, furniture, costumes, illustrated books and photographs, this major exhibition is organised in a collaboration between the association “French Lines” and the Hong Kong Maritime Museum, which has been newly installed close to the Star Ferry, facing Victoria Harbour, the first major port in Asia that today is the third largest in the world. For nearly two hundred years ships have sailed the seven seas. Immense and majestic, they embodied innovation and industrial achievements, the world of galloping progress, and the splendour of the Western civilization in the triumphant 19th century. Through a tour organised in 3 sections: Invitation to Travel, Lifestyle Shipboard, History of the Messageries Maritimes Far-East lines, "Palaces on the Seas" focuses on two large French cruise liners: “Compagnie Générale Transatlantique” and “Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes”, both of which carried über-wealthy travellers that desired comfort, modernity and new horizons in the Far East. Keen to surprise and to satisfy their passengers, both liners asked renowned artists to develop their interiors. Architects and designers such as Dominique, Rulhmann, Lanel and Lalique, French Marine painters including Brenet and Sébille, poster designers Colin, Cassandre, and Sandy-Hook, and major French manufacturers Christofle, Ercuis, Puiforcat, St. Louis, and Haviland combined their creativity and skills for these floating palaces to remain unsurpassed. This extraordinary exhibition depicts a time when the highlife mingled in an artistic setting on a fun filled trip par excellence.