Objects, images, descriptions and audio guide.
Highlighted with a few bright accents, this fan painting conveys a nightly atmosphere with boats anchoring on West Lake at the foot of the city walls. Willow trees line …
This series of paintings primarily tells the Old Testament story of Abraham and Isaac, and each of the canvases depicts the interaction of humans and angels. In three wo…
This oil sketch is one of many preparatory studies Seurat made for his monumental painting Bathers at Asnières (1883-84), depicting men leisurely bathing in the Seine ne…
With a bird’s-eye view, this ten-panel folding screen portrays the famous Seven Jeweled Mountain 칠보산 in North Korea. Ancient volcanic eruptions shaped the mountain’s …
George Bellows created this work during July 1915 in Ogunquit, Maine. Because of frequent rainy weather, the artist tended to paint indoors, focusing on portraiture. The…
Karl Anderson disliked the industrialized cities of his day and opted to paint rural settings seemingly untouched by modern development. The leisurely activity of apple …
These two portraits are of members of the Cho family, which originated from the area of Pungyang. Cho Jae-ho (1702-1762) on the left is the cousin of Cho Hyun-myeong on …
One of Denmark’s most celebrated artists, Vilhelm Hammershøi was a painter of quiet spaces, mystery, and silence. Among his most memorable works are paintings of his apa…
Reimagining English history was one way that Victorian (1837–1901) artists rooted themselves during a period of tremendous social and political change and life-altering …
The Trojan prince Paris was asked to determine which goddess was the most beautiful. Hera (tothe left of the group) offered him political power, and Athena (seen from th…
Neptune—the Roman god of water—and his wife, Amphitrite, ride a chariot pulled by sea horses. Water fowl and flying fish glide in the sky above them, while in the distan…
Tuti the wise parrot begins to tell Khujasta a moralizing tale of a merchant, the son of a vizier, and a magical, wooden parrot. An inscription in the margin of this pag…
This impressive view of a bustling fish market belongs to a series of paintings that Pissarro made during the summer of 1902 depicting the harbor at Dieppe. Borrowing fr…
Among O'Keeffe's most admired works are her close-up images of flowers whose compositions border on abstraction. In this example, a large image of a white pansy is juxta…
Xu You, a recluse who refused the throne offered to him by legendary Emperor Yao, chose instead to farm on Mount Ji. Sitting under cliffs, his left arm resting on his ri…
The Tuti-Nama , written in Persian in the early fourteenth century, contains a series of fifty-two moralizing tales told by a clever, talking parrot. Each story is inten…
Alluding to his wisdom, this white-clad Jain monk carries a manuscript under his left arm, bound with a red cover. Otherwise he carries a Jain monk’s basic accouterments…
Cliffs and waterfalls interspersed with trees and dotted vegetation are spread over this handscroll. Long paths wind their way through villages, beside cottages, shrines…
Johan Christian Dahl painted this dramatic view of the Feige Waterfall at Lysterfjord, one of the most spectacular natural wonders in his homeland, at time a when Norweg…
Monk Yuanzhao, with the honorific title Dazhi Lüshi, Great Wisdom Master of Vinaya, is depicted here as an itinerant monk, holding his alms bowl in the left and staff in…
An Qi, the subject of the portrait, was a second-generation salt merchant from Korea. He used part of his wealth to collect art. At the time this painting was commission…
The viewer is cut off from Lanka by the surrounding sea and the city’s golden walls in this expansive composition probably intended for courtly display This choice of pe…
This closing page of an imperial Mughal album originally had the shamsa , or sunburst, with a plain gold disc in the center, referencing the light of God as divine sanct…
In Chinese cosmology, the tiger's roar is said to produce wind. In Chinese paintings, the tiger is often shown with a dragon, who creates rain clouds. Together, they rep…