Asia

The Asian collection covers a territory that stretches from the Bosphorus strait to Indonesia. Its oldest artefact -a Chinese funerary urn- dates back to the 3rd millennium BC. With over 14,000 pieces, the collection focuses more specifically on India, Tibet, China, Japan and Indonesia. It is particularly representative in the field of religious iconography, weapons and textiles.

The initial collection was built up through transfers from former institutions such as the Musée Archéologique and the Musée des Missions, as well as through donations from several Geneva families and major bequests. These include the Himavati Indian collection (anonymous), the collection of Japanese toys by the writer Kikou Yamata (1897-1975) and her husband the painter Conrad Meili (1895-1970), or the collection of Japanese religious iconography by the anthropologist and prehistorian André Leroi-Gourhan (1911-1986).

The Asia collection has also developed on specific themes, as in the case of folk pottery collected by Horace van Berchem (1904-1982), as well as through fieldwork carried out notably by Marguerite Lobsiger-Dellenbach (1905-1993) in Nepal or by Jean Eracle (1930-2005) in Japan.

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