Buddhist luohans crossing the sea to the palace of the dragon king

Unidentified artist

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Northern Song painter Li Gonglin reinvented figure painting in the eleventh century, infusing old themes with a new scholarly appeal and creating compositions that were copied for centuries to come. This painting, made in the late Ming dynasty, bears a fake signature of Li; it may be a distant reflection of something he painted, but it may also be a pure fabrication. It depicts a group of Daoist immortals crossing the sea on various magical vehicles—a dragon, a begging bowl, a lotus leaf—to the dragon king, who awaits on the far shore.

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