The Stein Loan Collection: Ceramics and Buddhist Sculpture from the Silk Roads in the Victoria and Albert Museum

Abstract

It is commonly known that the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), holds a large and important collection of textiles from Dunhuang and other Central Asian sites, retrieved by Sir Marc Aurel Stein (1862-1943) during his expeditions along the Silk Roads in the Tarim Basin in West Turkestan (present-day Uyghur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang) and Gansu Province. But it is generally unknown that the V&A also holds a number of ceramic and Buddhist objects also collected by Stein. The nearly 600 textiles were given on permanent loan by the Government of India in three instalments (1923, 1932, and 1933) and come mainly from Stein’s second (1906-1908) but also from his third expedition (1913-1916). By contrast, the more than seventy ceramic and Buddhist objects stem from Stein’s second expedition only. The Museum and the Government of India agreed on 23 November 1923 to the permanent loan of these artefacts. Funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation allowed the V&A to photograph and catalogue the textile fragments in 2003, as well as to conduct conservation work and improve the storage conditions for this part of the Stein Loan Collection. The textiles from Dunhuang can now be accessed on the