Museo d'Arte Orientale

MAO, the Museum of Oriental Art, is located in the historic 18th-century seat of Palazzo Mazzonis. The museum's heritage encompasses some 1500 works, in part from the previous collections amassed by various city institutions, in part acquired in the past few years. The Museum's exhibition layout is divided into five cultural areas: South Asia, China, Japan, the Himalayan Region and Islamic countries. This layout corresponds naturally with the building's physical structure which is divided into the same number of interlinked but structurally separate exhibition spaces used to house the various sections. The gallery dedicated to South Asia contains the collections from Gandhara (a region situated between Afghanistan and Pakistan), India and south-east Asia. In addition to the friezes from the great stupa of Butkara, the Gandhara section also includes a series of statues in schist, stucco and terracotta. The rooms dedicated to Indian art contain reliefs and statues ranging from the 2nd century BC to 14th century AC. Works of art from Thailand, Burma and Cambodia are displayed in the rooms on south-east Asia, as well as outstanding examples of Khmer statuary. The Chinese gallery now houses works of art from ancient China, dating from 3000 BC to c.900 BC, with Neolithic ceramics, sacred bronzes, and lacquered and terracotta ware that include over two hundred examples of burial art works from the Han and Tang periods. The rooms dedicated to Japan contain wooden statues inspired by the Buddhist tradition (12th to 17th century), beautiful screens from the early 17th century, paintings and polychrome woodcuts, as well as an extensive collection of fine lacquered works. The Himalayan galleries house major collections of Tibetan Buddhist art, with wooden and metal statues, ritual instruments, tempera paintings dating from the 12th to 18th century, and a series of carved and painted wooden covers for sacred texts. The gallery of Islamic art houses an extensive collection of ceramics and glazed tiles illustrating the development of ceramic production from the 9th to the 17th century. Other items on display include exceptional collections of bronzes and manuscripts, and a valuable collection of Ottoman velvets.