Sichuan Provincial Museum
Images of Tibetan style paintings and sculpture from the public galleries of the Sichuan Provincial Museum in Chengdu, China, have been added to the HAR site [See Gallery Page]. There are now approximately 30 images with some details on the HAR site. Cataloguing is ongoing and more images will be added in the future.
In the beautiful and newly constructed museum there are three primary galleries for Tibetan artifacts: (1) sculpture, (2) shrine room with sculpture and (3) paintings. There are also additional Tibetan and Himalayan artifacts found scattered in other galleries. The Museum's total collection of Tibetan paintings might number as many as several hundred. It is not known how many sculptural objects are in the collection. According to HAR staff, after viewing a portion of the Tibetan painting collection in art storage, the best material in the museum's collection is not on display. The Tibetan collection is known for having a complete, or near complete set, of Gesar of Ling narrative paintings almost identical in composition to the partial set belonging to the Guimet Museum in Paris. Currently only one of those Gesar paintings is on display, although not in the Tibetan galleries.
There are two other important Tibetan museums in Chengdu, aside from a number of private collections of note - the Sichuan University Museum with approximaterly 300 Tibetan paintings and the Minorities University Tibetan Museum with approximately 50 paintings.