Sake Bottle with Nanban (Southern Barbarian) Design

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

"Nanban" means "foreigners who come from the south"—the Portuguese and Spanish traders who come to Japan in the 16th and 17th centuries. Their strange clothes and odd physiognomy add a humorous cachet to many decorative arts of the Edo period.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world. Each of the many civilizations of Asia is represented by outstanding works, providing an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world.

Metropolitan Museum of Art