404
VISIT TO THE AUREL STEIN COLLECTION OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM
PAUL BOLDING
The collection that Marc Aurel Stein took to London in the first decade of the 20th century yielded some of its secrets to a group of "Friends" who visited the British Museum on October 25, 1999. Dr Anne Farrer, the curator, kindly agreed to show some of the undisplayed objects to members of the Friends of the HK Branch of the RAS in London.
The BM collection includes scrolls, paintings on silk and other textiles that Aurel Stein removed from Cave 17 at Dunhuang, Gansu province. The cave, a memorial chapel to a 9th century monk, was walled up in the 10th century for reasons that are unclear and was opened on June 21, 1900. Aurel Stein was the first foreigner to gain access to the cave, in 1907.
He collected many thousands of objects, some 5,000 of which rest in the tiny, windowless, air-conditioned "Stein Room" in a corner of the BM. (He also bought some fakes, but that is another story.) The cave itself contained some 40,000 objects. The British Library alone holds some 14,000 scrolls and fragments in Chinese. It acquired textual material, including the "Diamond Sutra", the world's earliest known dated printed book, after it was founded in 1973. As Stein had financial support from the Government of India as well as the British Museum, further material went to the National Museum in Delhi, mainly three-dimensional pieces and wall paintings.
This was a period when countries were vying to expand their museum collections, and others were soon attracted to the area. As a result, objects from Dunhuang are found in Russia, Japan, France, Germany and elsewhere. A thriving international scholarship surrounds the material today. China has made no secret of the fact that it would like the Dunhuang material returned!
Dr Farrer showed a dozen or so of the most beautiful and interesting objects, explaining their significance.
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Page 436
404
VISIT TO THE AUREL STEIN COLLECTION OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM
PAUL BOLDING
The collection that Marc Aurel Stein took to London in the first decade of the 20th century yielded some of its secrets to a group of "Friends" who visited the British Museum on October 25, 1999. Dr Anne Farrer, the curator, kindly agreed to show some of the undisplayed objects to members of the Friends of the HK Branch of the RAS in London.
The BM collection includes scrolls, paintings on silk and other textiles that Aurel Stein removed from Cave 17 at Dunhuang, Gansu province. The cave, a memorial chapel to a 9th century monk, was walled up in the 10th century for reasons that are unclear and was opened on June 21, 1900. Aurel Stein was the first foreigner to gain access to the cave, in 1907.
He collected many thousands of objects, some 5,000 of which rest in the tiny, windowless, air-conditioned "Stein Room" in a corner of the BM. (He also bought some fakes, but that is another story.) The cave itself contained some 40,000 objects. The British Library alone holds some 14,000 scrolls and fragments in Chinese. It acquired tex- tual material, including the "Diamond Sutra", the world's earliest known dated printed book, after it was founded in 1973. As Stein had financial support from the Government of India as well as the British Museum, further material went to the National Museum in Delhi, mainly three- dimensional pieces and wall paintings.
This was a period when countries were vying to expand their mu- seum collections, and others were soon attracted to the area. As a result, objects from Dunhuang are found in Russia, Japan, France, Germany and elsewhere. A thriving international scholarship surrounds the ma- terial today. China has made no secret of the fact that it would like the Dunhuang material returned!
Dr Farrer showed a dozen or so of the most beautiful and interest- ing objects, explaining their significance. They included a silk embroi-
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