In this issue, we explore the many facets of East Asian and Islamic art, emphasising cultural exchange, artistic transformation, and the lives of objects across borders and centuries. Jin Xu’s study of the Tang dynasty horse paintings Night-Shining White and Man Herding Horses argues that the former represents a deliberate synthesis of Central Asian realism with indigenous Chinese aesthetic priorities—a fusion that marked a transformative moment in 8th century Chinese art.

We then turn to collecting histories and the afterlives of artworks. Itakura Masaaki and Yukio Lippit examine the Chinese painting collection of Japan’s ōhara family, revealing through technical analysis that their Five Oxen handscroll is a modern forgery by Zhang Daqian, while Shuo Sue Hua traces Zhang’s mid-century networks in Hong Kong, showing how the city served as a critical hub for artistic exchange and documentation during periods of political upheaval.

Material culture and craftsmanship are central to Shilei Zeng’s survey of Ming dynasty textiles at the Victoria and Albert Museum, which demonstrates how kesi tapestries, satin damasks, and embroidered vestments embodied imperial authority, Buddhist devotion, and early globalised trade between China and Portugal. Melanie Gibson reconstructs the Islamic art collection of the Victorian painter Frederic Leighton, using archival photographs and exhibition catalogues to piece together a dispersed assemblage of Iznik ceramics, carpets, and tiles that once filled his celebrated Arab Hall.

We next examine the performative and ludic dimensions of art. Joe Nickols discusses how samurai from the Kamakura to Edo periods used portraiture, fantastical helmets, Nō theatre, and even playing cards to project authority and cultural refinement—a tradition of ‘playfulness’ that continues in contemporary video games. Michele Bambling and Tamae Sagi present the first US solo exhibition of the Japanese mingei potter Kawai Kanjirō, tracing his evolution from technical mastery of Chinese glazes to the production of modernist wood sculptures, while emphasising the communal life of his Kyoto home-studio. Barbara Banasik introduces the Warsaw Asia and Pacific Museum’s collection of Mithila painting from Bihar, India, focusing on works produced during the formative ‘Holi colours’ period (c. 1967–88). She analyses stylistic markers, caste-based genres (Bharni, Kachni, Godna), and the challenges of attribution in a commercialising art market.
        

Finally, one of our two Susan Chen Foundation & Orientations Young Writers Award winners this year is Tong Su, who examines a 14th century Ilkhanid silk tapestry illustrating how Mongol rulers drew on Persian, Sogdian, Chinese, and Assyrian motifs—from lotus blossoms to lamassu guardians. In the tapestry, these motifs form a portable image of universal kingship, where alternating light and dark wefts become metaphors for cosmic order.

Together, these articles show how artistic ideas travel across cultures, how visual styles blend and change, and how collectors, dealers, and artisans actively shape what later generations accept as tradition.