While the sixth-floor galleries are undergoing an extensive renovation, the Museum is carefully studying and conducting conservation work on the monumental 12th-century wooden Dainichi Nyorai Buddha. When the Buddha is returned to its gallery in late spring 2014, it will be stabilized and we'll know much more about the art that went into creating this nearly 10-foot-tall sculpture.

Books of hours made during the late Middle Ages and Renaissance were products of collaboration between scribes, illuminators, bookbinders, and, sometimes, the original patron or owner. A recent acquisition of a French book of hours made in Rouen around 1510 tells the story of this collaboration through the structure of its contents, iconography, and assembly.

Devotional representations of Saint Barbara, a Christian martyr whose legend extended across both Western and Eastern medieval worlds, flourished in fourteenth-century Europe. An examination of the Providence Saint Barbara reveals a sculptural tradition with a complex and colorful practices of medieval devotion to the cult of saints.

Recorded on 05.03.19.

Egungun costumes are usually created from a wide variety of carefully chosen fabrics ranging from exquisite samples of local handwoven aso ofi to exotic fabrics imported from aro

In the fall of 2014, RISD art history students curated an exhibition comparing Tokaido Road views by artist Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858). That exhibition is now on view in the Museum.

For Yorùbá-speaking peoples in West Africa, cloth is equated with their most precious possession, children.

John Steuart Curry's images of the circus provide us with an insider's look at the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in the 1930s.

A jade lithophone from 18th-century China offers insight to the significant role of ritual music in ancient China—as an essential part of state rite to assert the legitimacy of reign.

RISD Museum intern Alicia Valencia (RISD 2015, Furniture) explains how the act of looking closely formed her impressions on Samuel Gragg's Elastic armchair.

The woman in Frank W. Benson's Lady Trying on a Hat has always been a character who caught my eye during visits to the Museum. From her averted gaze to the contrast between her white dress and the black hat, she is poised to play the lead role on the stage that Benson created.

Dubbed a travel coat by artist and designer Christina Kim, this is a garment made for journeys long and far, both real and imagined, for traversing territories in the mind as much as in the physical world.