Museum of Oriental Art

The Museum of Oriental Art (Italian: Museo d'Arte Orientale, MAO) is a museum in Turin, Italy, housed in the 17th-century Palazzo Mazzonis. Opened in 2008, it holds one of the most significant collections of Asian art in Italy, with approximately 2,200 works representing cultural and artistic traditions from across the Asian continent. The museum serves as a major institution for the study and public display of Asian art in Europe, attracting over 119,000 visitors in 2019.

The museum opened on December 5, 2008, through the merger of the Asian collection of the Turin City Museum of Ancient Art at the Palazzo Madama with contributions from multiple public and private entities. Turin City Hall provided the Palazzo Mazzonis as the museum's home, while the Region of Piedmont, the Fondazione Giovanni Agnelli, and the Compagnia di San Paolo supplied essential support. Architect Andrea Bruno, an Italian UNESCO expert in restoration and conservation of artistic and cultural heritage, oversaw the restoration of the palazzo and designed the interior installation. Franco Ricca, a university professor of quantum mechanics and longtime passionate scholar of Oriental art, directed the museum until 2013. The creation of the MAO resolved longstanding questions about how best to organize Turin's Oriental collections, which had previously been kept at the Museo Civico d'Arte Antica.

The MAO's holdings consist of about 2,300 works spanning the full breadth of Asian artistic production, supplemented by more than 1,400 archaeological finds from pre-Islamic period excavations at Seleucia and Coche in Iraq. The museum displays approximately 1,500 works on a rotating basis, organized into five thematic sections across multiple floors. The collections cover South Asia (India, Gandhara), Southeast Asia (Thailand, Burma, Vietnam, Cambodia), China, Japan, the Himalayas (Bhutan, Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim, Tibet), and the Islamic world (Turkey, Iran, Iraq, the Arabian Peninsula, and Central Asian former Soviet republics). The installation employs distinct chromatic and stylistic choices for each section, with extensive use of wood, steel, glass, and evocative graphic design that references the regions of origin.

The Gandhara collection features Buddhist-inspired pieces from present-day Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan dating from the 2nd century BCE to the 5th century CE, including friezes from the great stupa of Butkara from excavations conducted in the 1950s by the Piedmont section of IsMEO, along with schist, stucco, and terracotta statues. The Indian collection encompasses Hindu and Buddhist works from Kashmir, India proper, and eastern Pakistan, spanning from the 2nd century BCE to the 19th century, with stone sculptures, bronzes, terracottas, and cotton paintings representing Shunga, Kushana, Gupta, and Medieval Indian art. Chinese holdings range from Neolithic pottery through pre-imperial ritual bronzes and lacquers to Han and Tang dynasty figurines, horses, and tableware. The Japanese collection includes 12th to 17th century wooden statues, 17th to 19th century screens, textiles, paintings, woodblock prints, lacquerware, weapons, and armor, subject to frequent rotation. The Himalayan gallery presents wood and metal sculptures, ritual instruments, thangka paintings, and carved and painted wooden book covers from Bhutan, Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim, and Tibet. The Islamic collection is distinguished by precious manuscripts, Persian calligraphic copies of the Quran, Ottoman velvets, ceramics, and bronzes from Turkey, Persia, and Central Asia.

The museum occupies Palazzo Mazzonis, also previously known as Palazzo Solaro della Chiusa, a 17th-century urban palazzo in central Turin. Located at Via San Domenico 9-11, approximately 500 meters west of Turin Cathedral, the building is accessible via the Orfano bus stops about 80 meters away. Architect Andrea Bruno's restoration and installation design addresses the challenges of the historic building's floor plan, creating an engaging museum path despite the constraints of the antique structure. The entrance atrium features a large glazed space containing Japanese zen gardens with sand and moss. A monumental staircase leads to the galleries on upper floors. The fourth-floor Islamic gallery is distinguished by its green color scheme.

The Museum of Oriental Art is located in the city center of Turin, Italy, at Via San Domenico 9-11, 10122 Turin. It is owned and operated as a public cultural institution, with support from the City of Turin, the Region of Piedmont, and private foundations. The museum's official website is https://www.maotorino.it/. The ground floor houses temporary exhibitions, while the permanent collections are arranged across five floors. The museum's role extends beyond exhibition to serving as a privileged access point for scholars of Asian culture, supported by specific initiatives and programs. Visitor numbers have grown substantially since opening, exceeding 119,000 in 2019.