The core of VMFA’s Chinese art collection features ritual bronzes and jades from the Shang through Zhou dynasties, as well as Buddhist sculpture dating from the 6th through 11th centuries. Paintings include portraiture, landscape, and genre scenes, along with textiles and costumes, such as embroidered hangings and imperial robes from the Ming and Qing dynasties. Examples of ceramics, lacquers, furniture, and other decorative objects reveal masterful craftsmanship. Chinese holdings also include an acquisition of more than three hundred scrolls of calligraphy and painting dating from the 18th through 19th centuries.

VMFA’s Japanese collection developed in the 1960s and ranges from Buddhist sculptures and ritual objects to religious and genre paintings and screens, dating from the Heian, Kamakura, and Edo periods. Many works were acquired directly from Japan, often from the notable dealer Yamanaka & Company. The collection’s strengths include monumental temple sculptures, religious portraiture and ritual objects, landscape and genre paintings, and Zen Buddhist calligraphy. The collection is also enhanced by large holdings of woodblock prints, including traditional ukiyo-e and shin-hanga prints, which date from the 18th through 20th centuries.

VMFA’s growing collection of Korean art contains fine examples of ceramics, metalwork, lacquerware, and painting that span more than 1,500 years. The collection of ceramics, ranging from earthenware to celadon, and white porcelain with underglaze cobalt decoration, began to develop in the 1970s. Acquisitions from two collections introduced one hundred twenty works into the museum’s Korean collection, comprised of works of ceramics, metalwork, paintings, and roof tiles, dating from the Three Kingdoms and Unified Silla periods through the Goryeo and Joseon dynasties. Other holdings include traditional and contemporary paintings, furniture, and textiles.