Museum gotta see 'um

Alexander M. Kallis Seated Buddha, 1850-1900, Burma.

Emerald Cities. In the 19th century, Siam and Burma — two neighboring kingdoms in Southeast Asia —were renowned for their golden-roofed temples, lush gardens and handsomely adorned palaces. When Doris Duke (1912-1993), who at the age of twelve inherited $100 million from her father, took a 1935 honeymoon tour to India, Thailand and Indonesia and became fascinated with the region’s cultures. Over the ensuing decades Duke assembled thousands of pieces of Islamic and Southeast Asian art into a collection that remained largely unseen until after her death. Now many of these rare sculptures, paintings and decorative arts, donated to the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco in 2002, make their public debut in "Emerald Cities: Arts of Siam & Burma, 1775-1950,” the first major exhibition in the West to explore the rich but little known arts of Siam and Burma from this period. The exhibition is divided into sections for the arts of central Burma and central Thailand and for the arts of the upland regions of eastern Burma and northern Thailand. Two-thirds of the ornately carved furniture, lavishly decorated miniature shrines, gilded statues, elaborately illustrated manuscripts, colorfully detailed paintings and mirrored and bejeweled ritual objects displayed once belonged to Duke.

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