Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Artist D.Y. Begay describes the significance of the sis’łichii (sash belt) that she designed for a 19th-century dress in the MFA’s collection, which would have been worn by a Navajo woman to mark her transition out of girlhood. The completed ensemble is on view in our exhibition “Collecting Stories: Native American Art.” source

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Venice in the 18th century was perhaps the most alluring city in Europe—the jewel of Italy. This glittering metropolis was the birthplace and most constant residence of the peripatetic Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798). Explore the fabled palaces and hidden corners of his hometown and gain insight into the great Venetian artists featured in the exhibition, including […]

Over the past century, female artists, patrons, and scholars have been essential to the field of Studio Craft, often taking materials traditionally associated with women’s labor and rethinking their meaning and purpose. Explore with curator Emily Zilber case studies of women who have shaped craft’s place in the American experience from the 1940s onward, including […]

Bringing together voices from the academic, museum, and artistic communities, this free afternoon symposium expands on themes presented in “Collecting Stories: Native American Art,” the first exhibition to examine the perspectives, motivations, and voices involved in building the MFA’s early holdings of Native American art. Presenters share different perspectives on how Indigenous art was acquired […]

For most of its history, Boston was the most Puritan of American cities, the city where things were “banned in Boston.” Yet a surprising amount of LGBT-themed art made its way into the MFA’s collections. Learn about the MFA’s hidden gay side, from its rich collections of ancient Greek homoerotica to lesbian scenes in classical […]

Violoncello made by Marcus Snoeck, Belgium (Brussels), about 1720 (17.1731) Gavotte I and II from Suite No. 6 for violoncello solo (BWV 1012), about 1717 to 1723, by Johann Sebastian Bach Performed by Shirley Hunt source

Collector and connoisseur Wan-go H.C. Weng, on how his great-great-grandfather came to own Wang Hui’s masterpiece, “10,000 Miles along the Yangzi River” (1699), also known as “Ten Thousand Li up the Yangtze River.” source

More than three centuries ago, Wang Hui, the most eminent painter of his day in China, put brush to paper to create his masterpiece, “10,000 Miles along the Yangzi River” (1699), also known as “Ten Thousand Li up the Yangtze River.”. Collector and connoisseur Wan-go H.C. Weng, who gave this fifty-three-foot-long handscroll to the Museum […]