Welcome to the Asian collections of the Yale University Art Gallery! I’m Kirie Stromberg, Postdoctoral Associate at the Archaia Program for the Study of Global Antiquity. I’m an archaeologist and art historian of early East Asia, and I am so excited that you’ve decided to come on this journey with us.

The tour you are about to take was created entirely by undergraduates and masters’ students, under the guidance of both me and Dr. Denise Leidy, the Ruth and Bruce Dayton Curator of Asian Art and head of the Department of Asian Art. These students are enrolled in a course I’ve been lucky enough to teach this semester, titled “The Archaeology of East Asia.” In this class, we’ve built a foundation for understanding the lifeways and visual traditions of cultures that lived across regions within the boundaries of modern-day China, Japan, and Korea. Of course, the national borders that are drawn on maps today did not exist in the ancient world, so students have explored connections across early East Asia, focused on objects from about 3000 B.C.E. in China through the first millennium C.E. in the Japanese archipelago. One theme to note across all the objects in this tour is that they would likely have first been found in mortuary contexts and reflect the importance of funerary ritual across the diverse cultures of early East Asia.

The students you’ll hear from come from a wide variety of majors, from history to molecular biophysics and biochemistry. Their observations will bring you not only information but also their unique perspectives on the objects you see. I hope you’ll learn a thing or two, but most importantly, I hope you’ll have as much fun as we have in this class!

6 Kamini Purushothaman 2009_206_2

Bracelet
Silver and cloisonné
3 × 2 3/4 × 3 in. (7.6 × 7 × 7.6 cm)
Gift of Labelle Prussin, Ph.D. 1973
African Art
2010.124.11

Daniella Sanchez, Yale College Class of 2025 and currently a Bartels Intern in the Gallery’s Department of African Art.

Bracelet

Printer: Hall and Sellers, Philadelphia
40 Shillings from Philadelphia, 1775
Ink on paper
74 × 90 mm, 0.1 g (7.4 × 9 cm)
Transfer from the Yale University Library, Numismatic Collection, 2001
Numismatics
2001.87.103310

40 Shillings from Philadelphia, 1775

Maker: Daniel Christian Fueter, American, born Switzerland, 1720–1785
Whistle and Bells for Mary Duane North
Gold and coral
L. 5 3/16 in. (13.2 cm), 2 oz., 6 dwt. (71 gm)
Mabel Brady Garvan Collection, Gift of Mrs. Francis P. Garvan, James R. Graham, Walter M. Jeffords, B.A. 1905, and Mrs. Paul Moore
American Decorative Arts

1942.91

Whistle and Bells for Mary Duane North

Headdress Surmounted by Four Women's Faces and Mami Wata
Wood with paint, fabric, feathers, mirror, yarn, paper, and metal wire
54 1/2 × 20 × 19 in. (138.43 × 50.8 × 48.26 cm)
Charles B. Benenson, B.A. 1933, Collection
African Art
2006.51.568 / 78946


Headdress Surmounted by Four Women's Faces and Mami Wata

Audio: Cat Kausikan, Yale Class of 2025

Artist: Marisol, Venezuelan and American, 1930–2016
Mayflower
Wood with paint and glass
75 × 41 1/4 × 11 1/4 in. (190.5 × 104.775 × 28.575 cm) vitrine: 69 × 41 1/2 × 10 1/4 in. (175.26 × 105.41 × 26.04 cm)
Charles B. Benenson, B.A. 1933, Collection
Modern and Contemporary Art
Object Number: 2006.52.71

Marisol, Mayflower

Elkanah Tisdale, American, 1768–1835
Ann Brown Vernet
Watercolor on ivory
2 13/16 × 2 1/4 in. (7.1 × 5.7 cm)
Gift of Davida Tenenbaum Deutsch in memory of Alvin Deutsch, LL.B. 1958, and in honor of Kathleen Luhrs and Robin Jaffee Frank, Ph.D. 1995
American Paintings and Sculpture
Object Number/ID:
2023.95.80

Ann Brown Vernet

Maker: Unknown
Batik Book
Paper and cotton; batik
11 × 9 7/8 in. (27.9 × 25.1 cm)
Hobart and Edward Small Moore Memorial Collection, Gift of Mrs. William H. Moore
1937.5446

Batik Book

Artist: John Trumbull, American, 1756–1843
The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
1786–1820
Oil on canvas

20 7/8 × 31 in. (53 × 78.7 cm)
Trumbull Collection
1832.3

Greatly impressed with John Trumbull’s plans to execute a series of American history paintings, Thomas Jefferson invited the artist to stay with him in Paris. There, Trumbull wrote, “I began the composition of the Declaration of Independence, with the assistance of [Jefferson’s] information and advice.” Trumbull represents the moment when the committee appointed to draw up the document submitted Jefferson’s draft for the consideration of the Continental Congress. Conscious of creating an image for succeeding generations, Trumbull made the whole committee—John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin—present the document to John Hancock, rather than Jefferson alone, which would have been historically accurate. He consulted Adams and Jefferson about who should actually be in the scene. They urged that all the delegates be included, even those who were not present or those who had opposed the Declaration and did not sign. The goal was to preserve the exact likenesses of those extraordinary individuals—aristocrats, lawyers, doctors, farmers, shopkeepers—who had put their lives and fortunes on the line. Trumbull worked on the Declaration for more than three decades, hoping to include all fifty-six figures, but he was unable to obtain all the likenesses. Of the forty-eight portraits here, thirty-six were taken from life; others were copied from an existing portrait or taken of a son as a substitute.

Geography: Depicted Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Culture: American
Period: 18th–19th century
Classification: Paintings
Provenance: Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn.

The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

Yale University Art Gallery is the oldest college art museum in America. FREE and open to the public.

The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

Yale University Art Gallery

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