Tiger, Kraniche, Schone Frauen / Tigers, Cranes, Beautiful Women ─ Asiatische Kunst Aus Der Sammlung Klaus F. Naumann / Asian Art from the Klaus F. Naumann Collection

Comprised of two hundred paintings, ceramics and lacquers, mainly from Japan yet also including examples from China and Korea, the Klaus F. Naumann Collection represents one of the foremost efforts by a private individual in this field to find its way into a public institution. This publication introduces and illustrates for the first time all the works in the collection housed at the Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. The main emphasis is on the development of painting in Japan, represented here in formats that range from intimate hanging scrolls to large-scale screens, and on a wide variety of subjects that include Buddhist icons, sublime ink landscapes, illustrations of literary and mythological subjects and images of animals, plants and human beings. Vessels with natural glazes, blue-and-white porcelains and serving dishes with painterly polychrome designs, objects lacquered almost monochrome red and others that display sprinkled gold decorations over a black ground provide a glimpse of the multi-faceted achievements of more than a thousand years of art in Japan.

Dr. Alexander Hofmann is curator for Japanese Art in the Museum fur Asiatische Kunst, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.