The Arts of Asia

The Asian Art collection at the New Orleans Museum of Art is one of the most distinguished in the Gulf South. The richness, variety and breadth of the arts of China, Japan and India are showcased in the Museum's renowned holdings. The collection includes objects which range in date from the Neolithic to the contemporary, and include screens and scroll paintings, miniatures, calligraphy, woodblock prints, ceramics, bronzes, jades, and the decorative arts of East Asia and the Indian sub-continent.

The New Orleans Museum of Art has collected the arts of Asia almost since the inception of the institution. In 1914, the bequest of a large collection of Chinese jade and hardstone carvings from the Morgan-Whitney family marked the first donation of a collection to the fledgling institution, and marked an auspicious beginning to NOMA's collection of Asian art. Since that time the Museum has focused primarily on the collection of Chinese ceramics, Japanese Edo-period painting, and the sculptural art of India.