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The Collections and Archives

Virtual Tours

Join a free virtual tour to visit our museum from anywhere in the world. Register for one of our scheduled virtual tours or request a private virtual tour for your group.

You can also request a free virtual tour for your group of ten or more adults.

Virtual Tour Topics

  • Three rows of ceramics in various shapes displayed on gilded shelves against a painted green wall with feathery gold detailing in the upper left corner.

    Arts Across Cultures

    Consider differences and similarities across diverse regions and time periods.

  • Detail, white ceramic bowl, painted with red and black floral designs with Arabic script around the edge

    Arts of the Islamic World

    Delve into one of the country’s finest collections of arts of the Islamic world, featuring illustrated manuscripts, metalwork, and ceramics.

  • Detail of woodblock print depicting cherry blossoms in front of the Washington Monument

    Cherry Blossom Tour

    Embrace hanami, the traditional Japanese custom of “flower viewing,” through our Japanese art collections!

  • A pen and ink-wash drawing of a person riding a donkey and traversing an arched bridge in a rocky landscape.

    Chinese Brush Painting

    Examine refined brushwork in one of the most important collections of Chinese painting outside of Asia.

  • Detail of swirling, expressive dragons and clouds, painted on a white porcelain dish

    Chinese Ceramic Art

    Encounter Chinese ceramic works spanning more than four thousand years.

  • Nowruz Haftseen table arrangement

    Eat and Celebrate

    Through artworks, learn about special cuisines and celebration rituals across cultures and time periods.

  • Buddhist Art Across Asia

    Follow the journey of Buddhism from its origins in India and Nepal to its eventual arrival in Japan and Indonesia.

  • Six colorful mosaic glass tiles each depicting half a face.

    Freer in Egypt

    Retrace museum founder Charles Lang Freer's travels in Egypt through collected Biblical manuscripts, glazed ceramics, glass, and other artifacts.

  • Shallow pale green dish with decorations of grains, flowers, and vines.

    Korean Ceramic Art

    Encounter Korean masterpieces, especially celadon ceramics, ranging across one thousand years.

  • A lion dance performance on a stage, shot from the audience's viewpoint below.

    Lunar New Year

    Learn about legends, fortunes, and the symbolism of animals, plants, and colors associated with the Lunar New Year.

  • Detail of painting of birds flying among foliage

    Nature in the Arts of Asia

    From flora and fauna to sea and sky, explore nature motifs across cultures.

  • A colorful, softly painted watercolor scene of figures walking and pushing carts of flowers before a row of shopfronts.

    Whistler's World

    Experience American artist James McNeill Whistler’s paintings, watercolors, pastels, and prints.

Tour Past Exhibitions Online

If you missed an exhibition when it was on view, you can still request a virtual tour.

Anyang: China’s Ancient City of Kings featured artworks excavated from the capital of the ancient Shang Dynasty (ca. 1250 BCE–ca. 1050 BCE), including jades and bronze vessels. Learn about the advanced technology of bronze casting, explore intricate and sophisticated designs of ritual objects, and discover famous “oracle bones.”

Immerse yourself in the ambience of an Indian city with a tour of the special exhibition A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur. Established in 1553, Udaipur was the capital of the Mewar kingdom in northwestern India. The exhibition features paintings commissioned by Udaipur’s royal court between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries. Colored with opaque dazzling pigments, these large paintings on paper and cloth feature topographical landscapes of Udaipur’s palaces, lakes, and hillsides. Join this tour of Udaipur’s painted world and experience the moods of its court ceremonies, festivities, hunting grounds, and temples.

Virtually visit the exhibition Fashioning an Empire: Safavid Textiles from the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha. View extraordinary seventeenth-century textiles, full-length portrait paintings from the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, and beautiful illustrated manuscript folios from our collections.

One of our docents will share the art and culture of Safavid Iran (1501–1722), including textiles with sumptuous surfaces, original designs, and technical sophistication. These luxury textiles played a critical role in the social, cultural, religious, and economic life of Safavid Iran. Used for clothing, furnishing, and movable architecture, fabrics also functioned as important symbols of power and as ubiquitous forms of artistic expression.

The Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) is widely recognized for a single image—Great Wave Off the Coast of Kanagawa, an icon of global art—yet he produced thousands of works throughout his long life. Tour the former exhibition Hokusai: Mad About Painting, which featured works from the world’s largest collection of paintings, sketches, and drawings by Hokusai. The exhibition included works large and small, from six-panel folding screens and hanging scrolls to paintings and drawings. Together, these works reveal an artistic genius who thought he might finally achieve true mastery in painting—if he lived to the age of 110.

My Iran: Six Women Photographers highlighted Iranian postrevolutionary women’s photography in the museum’s collections. Discover nuanced and compelling stories of Iran through the contemporary lenses of Hengameh Golestan, Newsha Tavakolian, Shadi Ghadirian, Malekeh Nayiny, Gohar Dashti, and Mitra Tabrizian.

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