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Dublin surprises with two significant Asian art collections, both exhibiting Japanese artworks, among others. Ukiyo-e print, by Utagawa Kunisada, 19th century, Bender collection. (Susan James)
DUBLIN—Hidden within the Irish city of Dublin is a treasure trove of Asian art. Two great collections are now on public display thanks to the collecting instincts and generosity of two wealthy American contemporaries named Albert Bender and Alfred Beatty.
Born in Dublin in 1866, Bender moved to San Francisco as a teenager, made a fortune in the insurance industry, and began collecting artwork from China, Japan, and Tibet.
Bender Collection
In 1932, Bender donated 260 pieces from his collection to the National Museum of Ireland. A Dubliner’s Collection of Asian Art: The Albert Bender Exhibition is housed in the historic Collins Barracks just north of the River Liffey.
The Bender Collection is particularly rich in brilliantly colored, 18th-century Tibetan thangkas, painted cloth wall hangings depicting Buddhist saints and their stories. Another important part of the collection is a group of striking Japanese ukiyo-e, 19th-century colored woodblock prints of landscapes and of the “willow world,” the demimonde universe of actors and geishas, wine houses, and pleasure palaces.
Entering the exhibition is to experience both a sober statement of religious belief and a joyful expression of blossoming flowers and flying kites. A Bodhisattva sits in meditation on a mountain across from a geisha who is entertaining.
Among the thangkas and ukiyo-e prints, a vast range of exquisite Chinese items is exhibited: 1,000-year-old early Song Dynasty funerary jars decorated with the Green Dragon of the East, a horse and rider from the Tang Dynasty (618–907), as well as a duck from the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.–A.D. 220).
Beatty Collection
A few miles south lies another great collection. Alfred Chester Beatty, born in 1875 in New York City and of Irish descent, was Bender’s contemporary and an Asian-art aficionado. A fortune made in copper mining allowed Beatty to build a major collection of Oriental art, books, and scrolls, which he left in 1968 to the Chester Beatty Library, which was built to house and display his collections.
Expanded since then by judicious acquisitions, the library now contains one of the premier collections of Asian art in Europe. Located within Dublin Castle, the museum displays a rotating roster of objects divided into two exhibitions: Arts of the Book and Sacred Traditions.
China’s version of Romeo and Juliet is illustrated in a book called “The Story of Oriole,” dating to the 17th century.
Most of the Chinese objects date from the Qing Dynasty and include a rare copperplate series of prints dating from 1760s and titled “Quelling the Rebellion in the Western Regions.”
Albert Bender, a wealthy, Dublin-born American, gave his collection of artwork from China, Japan, and Tibet to the historic Collins Barracks in Dublin for permanent exhibit. Japanese Kutani Porcelain Bowl, 18th century, Bender collection. (Susan James)
China’s version of Romeo and Juliet is illustrated in a book called “The Story of Oriole,” dating to the 17th century. This version has a happy ending, unlike the original Tang Dynasty version.
Among the most important of the Beatty Library holdings are three of the surviving 400 volumes of the “Great Encyclopedia of Emperor Yongle.” Originally created in 1403 and completed in 1407/1408 on the orders of the third emperor of the Ming Dynasty, the “Great Encyclopedia” was a compilation of all accepted knowledge set out in 11,095 volumes.
A fire nearly destroyed the exhaustive work, and under imperial command, the volumes were recopied in the 16th century. The Beatty Library holds the volumes that are about poetry, bamboo, and paper.
The Japanese exhibitions discuss the history of printing. The earliest surviving examples of printing are Buddhist charms that date from the 8th century. Eight hundred years later, from the 17th century on, the newly prosperous and increasingly literate merchant class provided a growing market for ukiyo-e prints and painted story scrolls.
Beautiful lengths of painted scroll books, such as Sumiyoshi Jokei’s 17th-century “Scenes in and around Kyoto” and a 1688 telling of “The Tale of Genji,” open windows on vanished worlds.
The Beatty Library also contains exhibitions of Thai, Burmese, and Indian art. Through Aug. 5, a special exhibition featuring the earliest surviving scrolls telling “The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter,” the oldest Japanese work of prose fiction, dating from the early Heian period (9tth to 10th century), is on display after extensive restoration and conservation.Susan James is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles. She has lived in India, the U.K., and Hawaii and writes about art and culture.
