Arthur M. Sackler Museum

Standing Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara (Guanyin Pusa), Chinese, Tang Dynasty, early 8th century, Sculpture, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum. More

The Sackler Museum’s Department of Asian Art bears responsibility for one of the institution’s largest, most diverse collections, ranging from East Asian folding screens and scroll paintings to prints, ceramics, sculpture, metalwork, lacquers, and textiles. The approximately 20,000 works span more than 7,000 years, from Neolithic times to the present, and hail from a broad range of Asian civilizations. Although the department's holdings include significant works from India, Southeast Asia, and Tibet, it is most renowned for its East Asian art, which comprises objects from China, Korea, and Japan.

The art of Asia, like that of all regions, arises within varied contexts, with diverse purposes, reflecting the beliefs and way of life of each specific culture and period. The collection includes popular woodblock prints; art created in a religious context, such as sculptures and wall paintings that give visual manifestation to the Buddha and other important figures described in Buddhist texts; objects and paintings enjoyed in daily life by members of the East Asian elite, with emphasis on fine Chinese and Korean ceramics and Japanese lacquers; and art created for or found in a funerary context in ancient China, from bronze vessels used in ancestor-worship rituals to exquisitely crafted jade ceremonial objects.

The Asian collection’s size, importance, and varied strengths enable the Art Museums’ curators to mount groundbreaking exhibitions, do new and original research, and teach multiple aspects of East Asian art. It is a vital resource for research for students and specialists not only in art history but also in such areas as history, archaeology, social anthropology, epigraphy, literature, religion, philosophy, and political science, and serves a broad range of the academic community both within Harvard and beyond.

Highlights of the Collection

—Chinese archaic jades: over 700 jades dating from c. 5,000 BC to AD 200, considered by many to be the finest collection of such material in the world

—Chinese ritual bronzes: bronze vessels, weapons, mirrors, and chariot fittings from the Shang (16th–11th century BC) and Zhou (11th–3rd century BC) dynasties

—Chinese Buddhist sculpture: gilt bronze sculptures and examples from cave temple complexes, including a clay sculpture and wall-painting fragments from Dunhuang and numerous stone sculptures from other locales

—Chinese ceramics: a comprehensive collection, from Neolithic earthenwares to Song-dynasty (960–1279) stonewares, to porcelains of the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) dynasties

—Korean ceramics: a comprehensive collection of ceramics from the Three Kingdoms period (traditionally 57 BC–AD 668) to the Chosôn dynasty (1392–1910)

—Korean Buddhist art: rare and important sculptures and paintings from the Three Kingdoms period to Chosôn dynasty

—Korean paintings: representing major artists and schools from the Chosôn dynasty, with great strength in Sino-Korean “literati” paintings

—Japanese woodblock prints: over 8,000 books and prints primarily from the Edo period (1615–1868), including the world’s largest and finest collection of surimono (privately published luxury edition prints) and a significant assemblage of 20th–century prints

—Japanese paintings and calligraphy: representing many major artists and schools, with particularly strong holdings of narrative scrolls and books

—Japanese Buddhist art: including magnificent examples of sculpture, painting, and sacred texts

—Japanese lacquers: a notable collection of lacquer boxes dating from the late 15th to early 19th century

—Okinawan textiles: a small but rare collection of robes and textile fragments

—Southeast Asian illustrated manuscripts: one of the world's largest and most important collections of Thai manuscripts, which also includes rare examples from Cambodia, Burma, and Nepal