Florian Knothe trained as a furniture maker and conservator. Previously he worked as a furniture historian for the Huntington Collection and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the United States, and has published widely on European furniture and decorative arts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In recent years, this focus has shifted towards European and cross-cultural influences in China and the reception of artistic styles in East and West. As director of the University of Hong Kong Museum and Art Gallery (UMAG), he is responsible for the development of cross-cultural and interdisciplinary art exhibitions and educational programming, and he also teaches courses in art history and the social sciences.