6712438African Arthttps://collections.carlos.emory.edu/collections/71/objects/xmlThe museum’s collection of African art contains approximately 1,600 objects that reflect the size and diversity of the continent. The collection began in 1994 with the acquisition of more than 800 works of art from art collector William S. Arnett. While the Arnett objects consist predominantly of masks and carved figures from West and Central Africa, the collection has since grown considerably through gifts and key acquisitions and now represents objects from Eastern and Southern Africa, including textiles, ceramics, masks, sculptures, and jewelry, expressing many aspects of the continent's rich cultures from personal identity, spirituality, and community, to power, leadership, and entertainment. Highlights include the <a href="https://collections.carlos.emory.edu/objects/19777">Kom Beaded Bowl Figure</a> from the Cameroon Grassfields, used by royalty to hold kola nuts for their guests; <a href="https://collections.carlos.emory.edu/objects/19102">Mami Wata</a>, the Ibibio water spirit from Southeast Nigeria; the <a href="https://collections.carlos.emory.edu/objects/33733">Makonde Lipiko mask</a> from northern Mozambique; and a Koranic writing tablet from Ethiopia. Works of art on display in the African galleries represent only two percent of this collection. However, annual rotations and efforts to make the entire collection available online are expanding access to this vast collection, while research into the histories of ownership of each object continues to update the provenance record.https://collections.carlos.emory.edu/internal/media/dispatcher/64428/full722439Ancient Egyptian, Nubian, and Near Eastern Arthttps://collections.carlos.emory.edu/collections/72/objects/xmlThe museum's collection of Ancient Egyptian, Nubian, and Near Eastern antiquities is one of the largest on the East Coast, with over 7,200 objects dating from Prehistory to the 8th Century CE. The collection was formerly established in 1920 when Emory University professor William Shelton (1875-1959) travelled to Egypt and the MIddle East with James Henry Breasted's team from the University of Chicago. Shelton's goal was to acquire objects for Emory University's museum that would support faculty teaching, and he purchased over 250 artifacts and mummies. Through gifts and purchases, the collection grew steadily over the years and benefited from two major acquisitions. In 1999, the Carlos Museum purchased the Egyptian collection of the Niagara Falls Museum after its closure, adding over 150 objects and mummies to the museum's holdings. The antiquities collection of the Georges Ricard Foundation of Santa Barbara, California was gifted to the Carlos Museum in 2018, bringing over 1,500 objects and mummies to the museum.https://collections.carlos.emory.edu/internal/media/dispatcher/9407/full672440Art of the Americashttps://collections.carlos.emory.edu/collections/67/objects/xmlThe museum's collection of art of the Americas consists of more than 3,300 pieces from North, Central, and South America, from ancient to contemporary art, spanning 4,000 years. For the cultures of ancient Latin America, the museum’s holdings cover three major cultural centers, Mesoamerica, Lower Central America, and the Andes and include a range of media such as textiles (including <i>khipus</i>, used for Inka record-keeping), ceramics, wooden sculptures, and metalwork. The collections are especially strong in ancient Costa Rica, featuring over 600 works from all periods, including greenstone ceremonial axes and stone <i>metates</i> (grinding stones). The Carlos Museum also is the current steward of ancient items found in Georgia, including pieces excavated from the Etowah Indian Mounds, an important cultural center that flourished during the Mississippian period and is affiliated with the Mvskoke (Creek) people. The museum has a growing collection of more recent artworks by Native American and Indigenous artists from across the Americas, including 19th- and 20th-century textiles from Bolivia, Guatemala, and Panamá. In addition, the museum has a small but substantive collection of items from Native American groups from across the United States, including bandolier bags from the Great Lakes; beaded garments from the Great Plains; ceramics and silverwork from the Southwest; and basketry from multiple Native American nations. Artists represented in the collection include Maria Montoya Martínez and Julian Martínez (Tewa [San Ildefonso Pueblo]), Margaret Tafoya (K'apovi [Santa Clara Pueblo]), and Eva Q. Wolfe and Rowena Bradley (Ani’yunwi’ya [Cherokee]), as well as Tammy García (K'apovi [Santa Clara Pueblo]) and other contemporary ceramic artists from the American Southwest and northern Mexico. The Art of the Americas collection has changed significantly over the course of the last century. In the late 1920s, Emory’s Margaret Ashley-Towle excavated at the Etowah Indian Mounds under the direction of Warren K. Moorehead of Phillips Academy, Andover, MA, and subsequently transferred some of the excavated materials to the Carlos Museum. Also in the early 20th century, the museum received gifts of Native American artifacts from the collections of W. H. Ferguson (Fulton County, GA), W. E. Hightower (Montgomery County, GA), and Reverend R. B. Ross (Sumpter County, GA), although the exact provenience of those pieces, primarily lithics, is unknown. Between 1988 and 1991, the museum was transformed by the acquisition of more than 1,300 works of ancient American art from Carol and William C. Thibadeau. Subsequent gifts from Cora W. and Laurence C. Witten, Virginia C. and Clay W. Aldridge, and the Alan Grinnell Ars Ceramica Collection added to the formation of the museum’s important collection of art of the ancient Americas. More recent gifts include 19th- and 20th-century Maya textiles from the Bright Collection of Guatemalan Textiles; 19th- and 20th-century Native American art from the Philip Gainey estate; and modern pottery in the Puebloan tradition donated by Drs. Walter S. Melion and John M. Clum. In the future, the museum plans to expand the collections of contemporary Native American and Indigenous art, especially from the Southeast, in order to allow the Carlos Museum, Emory University, and the Atlanta community to be enriched by the insight and creativity of the many Indigenous artists working today. In accordance with the museum’s <a href="https://carlos.emory.edu/sites/default/files/2019-02/Statement%20on%20Acquisition%20Guidelines.pdf">commitment</a> to the Association of Art Museum Directors’ <i>Guidelines on the Acquisition of Archaeological Materials and Ancient Art</i>, research into the previous ownership histories of objects in the collection is active and ongoing. Relevant cultural materials have been published in accordance with NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act), and the museum is in communication with officials from associated Native American nations. The Carlos Museum welcomes and encourages requests from descendant communities to view or research any items in the collection.https://collections.carlos.emory.edu/internal/media/dispatcher/58782/full682441Asian Arthttps://collections.carlos.emory.edu/collections/68/objects/xmlThe museum's Asian collections focus primarily on the religious arts of South Asia. They represent living religious traditions that originated in India thousands of years ago and spread throughout Asia and around the globe—Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Indian Buddhism is represented by a majestic late 2nd-century <a href="https://collections.carlos.emory.edu/objects/6774">sandstone Buddha</a> from Mathura, one of the most important such works in an American museum, and a remarkable black stone <a href="https://collections.carlos.emory.edu/objects/7165">Pala Buddha</a> from the 10th century. A 14th-century gilded bronze statue from Tibet represents <a href="https://collections.carlos.emory.edu/objects/9012">Buddha Shakyamuni</a>, the “Great One of the Sakya clan,” seated on a throne of lotus petals at the moment of his awakening. The richness of the Hindu religious imagination can be seen in an 11th-century sculpture of <a href="https://collections.carlos.emory.edu/objects/7166">Vishnu resting on the cosmic ocean</a>, dreaming the world between the cycles of time as his consort Lakshmi presses his feet, and in the image of the goddess Durga destroying illusion in the form of <a href="https://collections.carlos.emory.edu/objects/6942">Mahisha</a> the buffalo-demon. A 10th-century bronze altar representing the <a href="https://collections.carlos.emory.edu/objects/6947">Jina Rishabhanatha enshrined</a> offers eloquent testimony to the third great Indian religious tradition, Jainism. The collection also includes paintings, including an important 17th-century <a href="https://collections.carlos.emory.edu/objects/6695">thangka</a> depicting the patriarch of the Ngor Monastery, one of the three greatest Sakyapa institutions in Tibet, and a 19th-century painting of the Cosmic Man, a visualization of the Jain conception of the universe. Over the past decade, the museum has been building a collection of Indian paintings depicting scenes from the great Indian epic, the Ramayana, and images of the Vishnu avatars. Highlights include the 19th-Century painting of <a href="https://collections.carlos.emory.edu/objects/32235">The Coronation of Rama</a>, as well as the first photograph in this collection, a large-scale photograph of the Hindu deity Vishnu by contemporary artist Manjari Sharma.https://collections.carlos.emory.edu/internal/media/dispatcher/74001/full692442Greek and Roman Arthttps://collections.carlos.emory.edu/collections/69/objects/xmlThe museum’s collection of Greek and Roman Art comprises over 5,400 Greek, Roman, Etruscan, Cypriot, and Bronze Age Aegean artifacts. From monumental public sculpture to small-scale items of personal adornment, and from drinking vessels to burial containers, objects on display in the permanent collection galleries demonstrate the rich and varied material cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, offering insight into diverse aspects of daily life, and illustrating processes of contact, conflict, and creative exchange across peoples and time. Highlights include an Attic red-figured <a href="https://collections.carlos.emory.edu/objects/6723">calyx krater</a> attributed to the Dinos Painter, depicting the death of Actaeon; a colossal <a href="https://collections.carlos.emory.edu/objects/10951">portrait head</a> of the emperor Tiberius; and a <a href="https://collections.carlos.emory.edu/objects/10275">cameo</a> with a portrait of the empress Faustina, formerly in the collection of George Spencer, Fourth Duke of Marlborough (1739-1817). The collection was formed following a substantial donation of Roman coins from Emory alumnus, Reverend Wilbur Fisk Glenn, in the late 1920s and expanded piecemeal through the 1960s. Beginning in 1981, the generous financial support and long-term commitment of Thalia and Michael C. Carlos ensured its development as one of the most significant collections of Greek and Roman art in the Southeast. It has been further augmented by important donations of objects from the <a href="https://collections.carlos.emory.edu/groups/brummercollection">Brummer Collection</a>, donations of Greek pottery from <a href="https://collections.carlos.emory.edu/groups/bothmercollection">Dietrich von Bothmer</a>, and the long-term loan of classical plaster casts from The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The collection also houses the photographic archive of archaeologist Conrad M. Stibbe (1925-2019). In accordance with the museum’s <a href="https://carlos.emory.edu/sites/default/files/2019-02/Statement%20on%20Acquisition%20Guidelines.pdf">commitment</a> to the Association of Art Museum Directors’ <i>Guidelines on the Acquisition of Archaeological Materials and Ancient Art</i>, research into the previous ownership histories of objects in the Collection of Greek and Roman Art is active and ongoing.https://collections.carlos.emory.edu/internal/media/dispatcher/61198/full702443Works of Art on Paperhttps://collections.carlos.emory.edu/collections/70/objects/xmlThe Works on Paper collection contains more than 7,000 prints, drawings, and photographs ranging from the twelfth to the twenty-first century, from manuscript illumination to contemporary works. The collection is particularly strong in drawings, both old master and modern, and Renaissance and Baroque engravings and etchings, including works by Albrecht Dürer, Hendrick Goltzius, Rembrandt van Rijn, and Giovanni Battista Piranesi. The photography holdings are continually expanding, with examples from the medium’s earliest days to the present. Modern and contemporary art, predominantly American and European, have been an important part of the collection since its inception. Highlights include works by Vassily Kandinsky, André Masson, Dorothea Tanning, and Romare Bearden. This encyclopedic collection is designed to instruct, to fuel interest in the art-making of the modern era and in the historical circumstances that inspired the artists. The collection was established in 1967 by the Art History Department, which continues to play an active role in the selection and donation of works to the museum. At the same time, the museum has benefited from numerous donations from private collectors, many of them Emory alumni from across the United States, as well as from present and former Emory faculty and, finally, diverse friends of the museum based in Atlanta and elsewhere. These gifts have enriched all the museum's collections immeasurably. Works on paper are fragile and, for this reason, cannot be exhibited for extended periods of time. Each year at least two exhibitions are mounted in the John Howett Works on Paper Gallery, and throughout the year professors and students may examine works not on view in the Elaine L. Levin Study Room. The museum is in the process of researching provenance for works that may have been in continental Europe during the Nazi Era. <a href="https://collections.carlos.emory.edu/favorites/8/nazi-era-provenance-list/objects">Learn more</a> about this research.https://collections.carlos.emory.edu/internal/media/dispatcher/76731/full