The final gallery on the first floor presents the museum's collection of the arts of Asia and of Africa.
Ceramics are the strength of the Asian collection.
Ranging in date from the third century B.C. to the nineteenth century, the collection includes representative pots, dishes, and sculpture made in China, Japan, Korea, and Cambodia. The majority are porcelains made in China for export to western markets, particularly to England and America, chiefly during the eighteenth century. Among the remainder of the Asian ceramic collection are cooking vessels, vases, and other utilitarian wares, as well as sculpture of Daoist immortals, all made for domestic use. Exquisite jade sculptures and various objects of everyday use carved in nineteenth-century China are another significant portion of the Asian collection. Valued for its durability and sensuousness, jade was thought to embody the virtues of Confucianism.