The Museum of Fine Arts Boston (MFA) is to open new Indian and Southeast Asian galleries on December 15.
Krishna Celebrates Holi with Radha and the Gopis. Attributed to: Nihal Chand (Indian, active in Kishangarh in the mid 18th century) Indian, Rajasthani, about 1750–60. Opaque watercolor and gold on paper. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Keith McLeod Fund. Photo: © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Highlights include important Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain works, such as a rare 5th-century painted fragment featuring Buddha’s half-brother, Nanda, from the caves in Ajanta, a UNESCO World Heritage site in central India – the only known work to have left Ajanta – and an elaborately carved 11th-century sculpture of the elephant-headed Hindu god of good fortune, Ganesh.
This gallery presents South and Southeast Asian art from a new angle, one that previously hasn’t been explored at the MFA,” said Malcolm Rogers, Ann and Graham Gund director of the MFA.
“It combines objects from across a vast region, illuminating the long history of artistic exchange that connected communities on both sides of the Indian Ocean.
“Today we constantly hear people talking about staying connected to one another. In the new installation, we’ll see an earlier age of connections, expressed through art,” Rogers said.