Melania Trump, Peng Liyuan Tour Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art

Any good host knows that when visitors are in town, a visit to the museum is top of the list. And so, on Thursday, the First Lady of the US took China’s First Lady to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, D.C.

Melania Trump toured around the museum for 45 minutes with Peng Liyuan, visiting rooms such as the Peacock Room, where Chinese porcelain takes center stage, as well as other rooms that feature Chinese artworks and Asian design. “What better place to introduce the two first ladies to our museum on the occasion of high-level conversations and discussions between our two countries?” Chase Robinson, the museum’s director, told the South China Morning Post.

The Peacock Room has a long history with China. The room was built between 1876 and 1877 by American painter James McNeill Whistler, whose work is currently being exhibited at the Tate Britain until Sunday. The room was moved to the US in 1904 by American industrialist Charles Lang Freer, who developed a love for China on a trip between 1910 and 1911. “I think they were both [Trump and Liyuan] intrigued by the scale of 19th-century interaction between China and the United States,” said Robinson.

To visit the museum, Trump wore a black McQueen tweed jacket with an asymmetrical collar that had a slight nod to the Chinese dress qipao, which has an asymmetrical collar. The First Lady completed the look with a matching skirt and black Christian Louboutin heels. Peng wore a modest navy qipao.

Also on Thursday, at the White House for the state dinner, President Donald Trump presented Chinese President Xi Jinping with a sculpture of a bald eagle, which is the United States’s national symbol and also a bird native to North America. Trump said the gift represented “the free and soaring spirit of America.”