The first World Expo, the Great Exhibition, was held at Crystal Palace in London's Hyde Park in 1851. The Shanghai World Expo is recalling that historic beginning in collaboration with the UK's Victoria and Albert Museum.

A painting "The Opening of the Great Exhibition" by Henry Courtney Selous, is on loan from the V&A for display in the World Expo Museum on the Puxi side of the Expo site.

Mark Jones, director of the V&A said world expos had one thing in common - a gathering of people from different parts of the world in the spirit of friendship and of peaceful competition.

"How to make the city better-the theme has a lot of relevance for people all over the world, because now half the world's population live in cities," he said. He hoped all the participants could use the Expo as an opportunity to think about how life in the city could be made better.

He said a number of other pieces related to the first Expo would be shown in the museum.

On the UK Pavilion's theme of bringing nature into the city he said: "British cities have many parks and public squares as well as fountains and many houses have small gardens."