HUAM Snags Asian Rarities

The Harvard University Art Museums (HUAM) have just acquired the Walter C. Sedgwick Collections of Japanese Buddhist sculpture and early Chinese ceramics, described in a HUAM press release as the most significant addition to Harvard’s Asian art collection in many decades.

The collections, acquired through a split gift and purchase arrangement, are divided between Japanese Buddhist sculpture and early Chinese ceramics. “This will complete our already outstanding collecting…it puts us in a position of international prominence,” said Robert D. Mowry, Alan J. Dworsky curator of Chinese art and head of the department of Asian art at the Sackler Museum.

The Japanese items include three superb examples of early Buddhist sculpture. “Each one of these sculptures is of national treasure quality,” Mowry said. The highlight, however, is a sculpture of Prince Shotoku, dated to 1292, which Mowry described as “magnificent,” and “the single most important [Japanese] sculpture anywhere in the West.”

The sculpture was originally bought in Japan in 1936 by the grandfather of Walter C. Sedgwick ’69, who was also a Harvard alum. Sedgwick inherited the piece, and, inspired by a professor of Asian art who was his mentor during his undergraduate years, turned to collecting. He soon acquired the two other pieces.

Prince Shotoku was the founder of Japanese Buddhism, according to Assistant Professor of History of Art and Architecture Yukio Lippit. “This is the earliest dated example of the subject, and is especially significant since it comes with all of the objects interred inside,” Lippit explained. “These sort of sculptures were often hollowed out and filled with devotional objects. It generates karmic merit for the [person who commissioned it].” This sculpture is currently on view on the second floor of the Fogg Museum.

According to Mowry, Sedgwick wanted to contribute something to the Harvard University museums that would strengthen the Chinese collection while complimenting existing holdings. Harvard already has renowned collections of early Chinese jade and bronze, as well as later Chinese ceramic, but had few pieces of early ceramic. With his goal in mind, Sedgwick focused on building this collection for the past 10 years; “Right from the beginning with the intent that it would come to Harvard. It was tailor made for the museum,” said Mowry.

“The collection allows the museum to provide a continuous narrative of the development of Chinese ceramic history from the Neolithic to the Qing,” Lippit said. This element of the collection, like the Japanese sculpture, is probably the finest outside of China. Said Mowry, “It is the largest, finest, and most comprehensive collection of this sort of material anywhere in the West.”

According to Daron Manoogian, the public relations manager for the museums, “It is important for these objects to be in a teaching museum, because they are more accessible to scholars and students.” Mowry elaborated: “We used to teach on the basis of pictures and slides…that would be like, in medicine, teaching with textbooks and slides and never seeing a real human being. A museum and collection is to art history what a laboratory is to science. You need access.”

Many of the works in this world-class collection have been on loan to the Harvard University Art Museums, and will now become part of the permanent collection, to be fully displayed pending the completion of the major museum renovations.

—Staff writer Alexander B. Fabry can be reached at fabry@fas.harvard.edu.