Garden estate

Unidentified artist

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A group of gentlemen ramble throughout a vast garden estate, enjoying waterside pavilions and the company of cranes. Many gardens in premodern China were small in scale, but painted representations of them can make them seem vast—a reflection of how their makers intended them to be experienced: as places where the spirit could run free. This handsome painting bears a fake signature of the twelfth-century painter Liu Songnian, but it was likely made in the seventeenth century to satisfy market demand for old paintings.

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