MFA Highlights: Arts of South Asia

A concise introduction to the MFA Boston’s celebrated collection of South Asian art

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is home to an important collection of artworks from South Asia that spans a large geographical area—comprising India and the countries that surround it—and more than four millennia. Among these objects are expressive figures in bronze and stone, dazzlingly intricate miniature paintings, luxury textiles and exquisite metalwork.

Arranged thematically around dualities of art and craft, sacred and secular, Hindu and Muslim, real and ideal, male and female, and local and foreign—reflecting and challenging the dualistic thinking often applied to South Asian art—the works gathered in this volume reveal the richness and depth of South Asian art and culture.