Museums with Asian Art Collections Online
Collection-size categorization in this section refers only to a museum's ONLINE collection of digitized images

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Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College: Asian Art Collection
Six selected works from the AMAM's Asian art collection: two Qing dynasty handscrolls (one landscape and one calligraphy); a pair of Qing imperial vases; an Edo/Meiji period document box; an Edo period woodblock print; and a hanging scroll from Republican Period China. All six works have in-depth descriptions.

Go to Museum Resource: http://www.oberlin.edu/amam/AsianArt.htm
 
American Museum of Natural History: Asian Ethnographic Collection
Featuring more than 44,000 objects from the AMNH's Asian Ethnographic Collection. Find objects by culture or country, and filter results to see only objects currently on view at the AMNH. Label information only; no descriptions.

Go to Museum Resource: https://anthro.amnh.org/asia
 
The Art of Sotatsu
Discover Tawaraya Sōtatsu, one of the most influential yet elusive figures in the history of Japanese visual culture. Sōtatsu: Making Waves is the first exhibition outside Japan to tell his story—a once-in-a lifetime experience in which two of the artist’s most important paintings, the Freer’s Waves at Matsushima and Dragons and Clouds, were on view. Also see their Sōtatsu Pinterest page and Sotatsu’s Waves at Matsushima (Teaching poster) [PDF] - Tawaraya Sōtatsu (act. ca. 1600–40). Japan, early 1600s. Pair of six-panel folding screens. Ink, color, gold, and silver on paper.

Go to Museum Resource: https://asia.si.edu/exhibition/sotatsu-making-waves/
 
Arts of China: Painting
Appreciating Chinese art is often described with the term du hua, “to read a painting.” Here in their Pinterest page, the Freer Sackler Education Department introduces Chinese paintings from the museum’s permanent collection. These albums, handscrolls, and hanging scrolls portray traditional Chinese subjects, such as landscapes, animals, flowers, and bamboo. To view detailed images and download them in high resolution, visit our online collection.

Go to Museum Resource: https://www.pinterest.com/freersackler/educators-arts-of-china-painting/
 
ARTstor
This Mellon Foundation initiative is a vast digital library of approximately 500,000 images covering art, architecture, and archaeology. Individuals must log on with an institutional subscription or as a walk-in user at participating public libraries. Read the FAQ section (under About ARTstor) for more information.

Go to Museum Resource: http://www.artstor.org
 
The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology: Eastern Art Collection
Explore selections covering a range of time periods and media from the Ashmolean's "Eastern Art" collection. Images include description and context.

Go to Museum Resource: https://www.ashmolean.org/eastern-art
 
Asia Society: The Collection in Context
Featuring more than 200 artworks from the Asia Society's collection, divided into five categories: South Asia, Himalaya, Southeast Asia, China, Korea, and Japan. The artworks in each category are further grouped together by type, with introductory text for each grouping as well as for each object. The website also includes timelines, online guided tours (slide shows), and a Looking Deeper section with several online exhibitions on selected themes.

Go to Museum Resource: http://www.asiasocietymuseum.org
 
Asian Historical Architecture
Excellent site with photographs and informative text about existing historical structures throughout Asia.

Go to Museum Resource: http://www.orientalarchitecture.com
 
Boston Children’s Museum
The Japanese House exhibit, also called Kyo no Machiya, at Boston Children’s Museum is a well-preserved machiya, a traditional urban house from Kyoto, Japan. It was a gift from the city of Kyoto to the city of Boston to commemorate the 20th anniversary of their Sister Cities Relationship in 1979. This machiya was originally built in the late 1800s and was once home to a silk merchant family in Kyoto’s Nishijin neighborhood, long famous for its silk weaving.

Go to Museum Resource: https://japanesehouse.bostonchildrensmuseum.org/virtual-tour
 
The British Library: Images Online
Thousands of images from the British Library's collection are available online here. Find Asia-specific images by typing in appropriate keyword(s) in the search box. See specifically: East Asia Collection Guides, South Asia Collection Guides, Southeast Asia Collection Guides, India Office Records, Early Indian Printed Books, British Library Treasures contains several items from the area, British Library: Visual Arts Collection.

Go to Museum Resource: https://www.bl.uk/catalogues-and-collections/digital-collections
 
Chester Beatty Library: East Asian and Islamic Collections Image Gallery
Selected works from the library's East Asian and Islamic Collections, which include works from China, Japan, Tibet, Mongolia, and South, Southeast, and West Asia. Images do not enlarge, but some have descriptions. Currently more than 120 objects are featured in the online gallery.

Go to Museum Resource: http://www.cbl.ie/Image-Gallery.aspx
 
Chinese Art Collection: Overview
The Freer and Sackler Galleries boast one of the finest museum collections of Chinese art outside of China, with more than ten thousand objects dating from Neolithic times (ca. 7000–ca. 2000 BCE) to the present. While the sheer number of items is impressive, it is their variety and quality that is truly remarkable, with nearly every medium and category of Chinese art represented. Explore their past exhibits on Chinese Art.

Go to Museum Resource: https://asia.si.edu/exhibitions/chinese-art/
 
Digital Himalaya
"The Digital Himalaya project was conceived ... as a strategy for archiving and making available valuable ethnographic materials from the Himalayan region. The Digital Himalaya project was conceived of by Professor Alan Macfarlane and Dr. Mark Turin as a strategy for archiving and making available valuable ethnographic materials from the Himalayan region. Based jointly at the Department of Social Anthropology at Cambridge University and the Anthropology Department at Cornell University, the project began in December 2000. Five ethnographic collections representing a broad range of regions, ethnic groups, time periods, and themes were slated for digitisation in the first phase of the project, along with a set of maps of Nepal and important journals on Himalayan studies."

Go to Museum Resource: http://www.digitalhimalaya.com/collections/index.php
 
Digital South Asia Library
This "global collaborative effort to make important and rare resources available to the international community" is a comprehensive library of digital resources on South Asia. Resources include images, maps, statistics, references, and indices, among others.

Go to Museum Resource: http://dsal.uchicago.edu/index.html
 
Explore the Museum
Explore the collection, including Artworks, People, Culture and a "Timeline of the Ming & Qing Palace Events."

Go to Museum Resource: https://en.dpm.org.cn/EXPLORE/
 
Finding Mount Fuji
See their Mount Fuji collection, and also their Mount Fuji Pinterest page, compiled by the Education Department at the Freer Sackler. We hope that these works of art inspire study and provoke thought. You can compare and contrast different depictions of Mount Fuji, see how the images changed over time, and analyze works for specific elements. The artworks are a great starting point for visual analysis, historical content, and other research.

Go to Museum Resource: https://asia.si.edu/subject/mount-fuji/
 
Google Arts & Culture
Explore by country to find images and annotation for history, places, folk culture, and more.

Go to Museum Resource: https://artsandculture.google.com/
 
Himalayan Art Resources
Featuring more than 30,000 images from the collections of more than 150 museums and institutions, private collections, and photographic archives, this is a truly comprehensive resource for Himalayan Art. Every image enlarges, some with an excellent zoom tool, and many images have excellent, in-depth descriptions. Browse images by museum/institution or collection, or select OUTLINE PAGES (near bottom of homepage) to view images by various topical subject areas, including iconography, religious traditions, and art subjects. There is also an extensive index by which to browse objects, and a glossary with links to images.

Go to Museum Resource: http://www.himalayanart.org/
 
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College: Asia and Near East Collections
Highlighting 19 objects from the Hood Museum's collections of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Near Eastern, and South Asian art.

Go to Museum Resource: http://hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu/collections/overview/asia/
 
IJC Museum
"The virtual IJC Museum in the Cloud allows visitors like you to enjoy modern artworks by Japan’s representative artists. You can view works from all directions with 360° freedom and get so close that you can see the subtlest details and even feel the presence of the artists." A site by Nippon Airways.

Go to Museum Resource: https://www.ana-cooljapan.com/contents/art/
 
Jewels in Her Crown: Treasures of Columbia University Libraries Special Collections
25 selections from the University's East Asian collection. Objects include a Shang dynasty oracle bone, a collection of Nestorian crosses from Yuan dynasty China, and several rare manuscripts from Japan and Korea. All images enlarge and have descriptions.

Go to Museum Resource: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/eresources/exhibitions/treasures/html/long_topi...
 
Miho Museum: Asian Art Collection
Featuring hundreds of objects from the museum's collection of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, South Asian, and Southeast Asian art. Select the South Wing, North Wing, and Archive links on the Collections page to bring up floor plans of the museum's south and north wings. Select specific rooms on the plan to view artworks. The Archives section presents past displays. Many artworks have excellent descriptions.

Go to Museum Resource: http://www.miho.or.jp/english/collect/collect.htm
 
National Archives of Japan: Digital Archive
With hundreds of documents, scrolls, drawings, posters, photographs, and maps, including "colorful large-sized maps of provinces compiled by the Tokugawa Shogunate." An excellent resource, with informative text and excellent high-resolution digital images.

Go to Museum Resource: http://www.digital.archives.go.jp/index_e.html
 
The National Folk Museum of Korea: Exhibition Guide and Collections Search
The three guides to Exhibition Halls I, II, and III give excellent overviews of Korean history and culture. The Collections Search section features more than 600 individual objects, all with descriptions.

Go to Museum Resource: http://www.nfm.go.kr/english/index.do
 
National Gallery of Australia: Asian Art Collection
Overview of the NGA's collection of Asian art. With images of five artworks.

Go to Museum Resource: https://nga.gov.au/collections/asia/
 
National Museum of Korea
Featuring 100 highlights from the National Museum's collection, divided into following galleries: Archaeological, Historical, Fine Arts I & II, Asian Arts, and Donations. All objects have descriptions. Most of the 100 artworks are Korean, but selections in the Asian Arts Gallery and the Donations Gallery are from other parts of Asia.

Go to Museum Resource: http://www.museum.go.kr/site/eng/home
 
National Palace Museum – Taipei, Taiwan
The National Palace Museum in Taipei offers a wealth of exhibits, drawing on its extensive collection of palace treasures from the Imperial City. Please see current exhibitions and search other titles here. Some pages use Flash; all pages can be translated into English

Go to Museum Resource: https://www.npm.gov.tw/en/
 
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Collection
The Nelson-Atkins has a large collection of Chinese, Japanese, and South & Southeast Asian art. Currently 25 works from these collections are featured online. All images have descriptions and a high-resolution zoom feature.

Go to Museum Resource: https://art.nelson-atkins.org/collections
 
Northern Illinois' Burma Art Collection
Featuring nearly 300 objects from the university's collection of more than 10,000 objects, including lacquerware, manuscripts, metalwork objects, paintings, sculpture, swords and daggers, textiles, votive tablets, musical instruments, and decorative objects.

Go to Museum Resource: https://www.niu.edu/burma/collections/art/index.shtml
 
Norton Simon Museum: Curriculum Packet on Indian and Southeast Asian Art [PDF]
A curriculum packet based on the museum's collection of Asian art, which is "particularly rich in art from the Indian subcontinent."

Go to Museum Resource: https://www.nortonsimon.org/assets/Curriculum-Guides/CG-Asian-Art.pdf
 
Oxford Art Online
A reference "gateway" that gives users access to content from The Dictionary of Art (1996, 34 vols.), The Oxford Companion to Western Art (2001), the Concise Dictionary of Art Terms, and Oxford's Encyclopedia of Aesthetics. A subscription is required, but library and institutional rates are available.

Go to Museum Resource: https://www.oxfordartonline.com/
 
Pacific Asia Museum: Explore the Collections
Featuring more than 2,500 objects from the Pacific Asia Museum's collection of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Southeast Asian, South Asian, Himalayan, and Pacific Islands art. The Image Viewer tool enlarges all images and also allows users to gather favorite objects from the collection into a gallery that can be saved and shared with others. Browse the Featured Collections section to see artworks grouped by country and type, or use one of the three search functions. The Click & Search function makes it easy to find works by country/culture.

Go to Museum Resource: https://pacificasiamuseum.usc.edu/directory/collection/
 
Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida: Asian Collection
Seven selected works from the Harn Museum's Asian art collection: three sculptures (India, 13th C; Pakistan, 4-5th C.; Nepal, 13th C), two decorative art objects (a Ming dynasty vase and a Tang dynasty bronze mirror), and two paintings from the mid-20th century (China, India). All objects have short descriptions.

Go to Museum Resource: http://www.harn.ufl.edu/collections/asian
 
Shanghai Museum: Collection
View collection by category: Bronze, Sculpture, Coins, Ceramics, Paintings and Jade. It is also possible to search the entire collection and view museum “Treasures.”

Go to Museum Resource: https://www.shanghaimuseum.net/museum/frontend/en/collection/index.action
 
The Tibetan and Himalayan Digital Library: Collections
"THDL's Collections are the equivalent of the stacks in a traditional library, and constitute its major holdings of texts, videos, images, maps and other data that are at the heart of the library. Users of the library can search across all videos, texts, images and so forth as individual resources, or they can consult specific organizations of these resources constituting collections based on thematic or geographical criteria."

Go to Museum Resource: http://www.thlib.org/
 
The Tokugawa Art Museum
The permanent exhibitions at this museum are devoted primarily to the Tokugawa period, but the museum also owns most of the extant sections of the 12-century illustrated Tale of Genji. The online collection includes arms and armor, teaware, decorative arts, clothing, and Noh theater masks -- all from the Edo or Tokugawa period. There is also a short presentation about the museum's Tale of Genji collection, but none of the images in this section enlarge.

Go to Museum Resource: http://www.tokugawa-art-museum.jp/english/index.html
 
Tokyo National Museum
Featuring more than 500 objects from the TNM's collection of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, South Asian & Southeast Asian Art. There are no object descriptions, but the images are of excellent quality and enlarge several times to show great detail. There is no search tool, but groups of objects can be viewed in many ways: By country, further organized by time period; or by type - Archaeology, Sculpture, Painting, Calligraphy, Decorative Arts, and Others - further organized into useful sub-categories.

Go to Museum Resource: https://www.tnm.jp/?lang=en
 
University of Alberta Museums, The Mactaggart Art Collection
"The Mactaggart Art Collection includes over 600 textiles, costumes and related artifacts dating from the Song (960-1279), Ming (1314-1644) and Qing (1644-1912) dynasties. There are also many fine and rare examples of 17th and 18th century Chinese court costumes and silk fragments, as well as a world-class collection of Tibetan costumes. The painting collection includes works dating from the 13th century (Yuan Dynasty) to the 1980s and is comprised of hanging scrolls, hand scrolls, albums and engravings with particular strength in Qing court paintings. Notable among these is the Southern Inspection Tour Scroll from 1698, which documents the Kangxi Emperor's boat voyage of 1689 through southeast China."

Go to Museum Resource: http://www.museums.mactaggart.ualberta.ca/mac/index.aspx
 
The University of Michigan Museum of Art: Asian Art Collections
Explore the UMMA's online collection of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, South Asian, and Southeast Asian art by browsing highlight objects from each department, or by using the Search Online function. Currently there are more than 3,500 objects online in these categories. Images can be viewed in various sizes and also zoomed and panned, and a Portfolio feature allows users to group favorite objects into a personal gallery that can be saved and shared.

Go to Museum Resource: https://umma.umich.edu/archive/collections/asian.html
 
Victoria and Albert Museum: Asia Collection
Explore the V&A Museum's online collection of Asian art by reading about 16 featured objects or by using the Search the Collections function (top item in left column). Currently there are more than 5,000 objects online in the Asia collection. All images enlarge, and most have descriptions. Also see the ASIA FEATURES section for discussions of 12 Asia-related topics.

Go to Museum Resource: http://www.vam.ac.uk/page/e/east-asia/
 
Vietnam Museum of Ethnology
"The Vietnam Museum of Ethnology is both a research centre and a public museum exhibiting the ethnic groups of Vietnam. The mission of the Museum is scientific research, collection, documentation, conservation, exhibition and preserving the cultural and historic patrimony of the nation’s different ethnic groups." Select EXHIBITIONS for a virtual tour of the museum and information about past and current exhibitions.

Go to Museum Resource: http://vietnammuseumofethnology.com/
 
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts: East and South Asian Art Collections
Highlighting more than 80 objects from the Virginia Museum's collection of East and South Asian art (look under "Collections" to get to the South Asian art). Objects do not have descriptive text other than label information, but the images are excellent and enlarge to show a great amount of detail for each object.

Go to Museum Resource: https://www.vmfa.museum/collections/east-asian-art/
 
Virtual Collection of Masterpieces, Asia Europe Museum Network
Features a large collection of "masterpieces" selected by more than 50 participating museums in the Asia Europe Museum Network. Objects from East, South, and Southeast Asia are well represented in this collection, with more than 200 objects from China currently featured. All images enlarge, and all objects have excellent descriptions.

Go to Museum Resource: http://masterpieces.asemus.museum/default.aspx
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