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Asian Art

The Walters Art Museum displays more than 1,000 works of Asian art, including works from China, Japan, Korea, India, and Southeast Asia. Highlights of the Asian art collection assembled by William and Henry Walters include Japanese arms and armor, Chinese and Japanese porcelains, lacquers, and metalwork. Among the museum's outstanding works of Asian art  is a late 12th- or early 13th-century Cambodian bronze of the eight-armed Avalokiteshvara, a T’ang Dynasty earthenware camel given as a tomb offering to accompany the soul of the deceased, and an intricately painted Ming Dynasty wine jar most likely made for the wedding of a prominent 16th-century couple. The museum owns the oldest surviving Chinese wood-and-lacquer image of the Buddha (late 6th century AD), which is exhibited in a gallery dedicated solely to this work.

Recent generous gifts have enlarged the museum’s holdings in Southeast Asian art to the point that the Walters now houses one of the largest and finest collections of Thai bronzes in the world and an unmatched collection of Thai scrolls and banner paintings, as well as arts of Nepal, Tibet,  India, and Burma.

The museum's collection of Asian art is exhibited in Hackerman House, a historic Baltimore mansion completed in 1850 and ranked among the city's finest late classical structures.