St. Louis businessman Robert Kresko is a longtime friend of Dallas real estate magnate Trammell Crow, in part because of their mutual love of Asian art. The Crows' holdings are wide-ranging. Dallas is this exhibition's lone stop.
Bronze is a crucial part of Chinese art history.
B.C. A rich casting tradition, especially among Chinese literati and royalty, has continued to the present day. Because copper, bronze's main ingredient, was sometimes more scarce than gold or silver in China, the alloy was long considered the supreme material to use for ritualistic and funerary objects. Crow Collection director Bonnie Speed came to the museum from the St. Louis area last spring. Twenty-six of the Kresko Collection's 40 or so pieces make up the Crow exhibition, which is installed upstairs in the eastern mezzanine. Most are from the 1500s to the 1800s and are vessels that were used to burn incense or hold ceremonial rice in temples, homes and public buildings.