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Museum of East Asian Art

Museum of East Asian Art
Museum of East Asian Art.JPG
Museum of East Asian Art, Bath is located in Somerset
Museum of East Asian Art, Bath
Location within Somerset and the United Kingdom
Established 1993
Location Bath, Somerset
Coordinates 51°23′11″N 2°21′48″W / 51.3864°N 2.3633°W / 51.3864; -2.3633
Curator Michel Lee
Website Museum web site

The Museum of East Asian Art or MEAA is in Bennett Street, Bath, Somerset, England.

Just a few metres off The Circus in central Bath, the Museum of East Asian Art is situated in a restored Georgian house. The Museum attracts the interest of students, scholars and tourists. It includes a collection of ceramics, jades, bronzes and bamboo carvings and more, from China, Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia. It is the only museum in the United Kingdom dedicated solely to arts and cultures of East and Southeast Asia.

It houses a collection of almost 2,000 objects, ranging in date from c.5000 BCE to the present day. The Museum's collection started from the collection of Brian McElney OBE, a retired solicitor who practised in Hong Kong for over 35 years, and has since been expanded.

To offer facilities for the appreciation and study of East and Southeast Asian art and cultures. To this end the Museum collects, preserves, exhibits and makes available to the public, artefacts from East and Southeast Asia, and information relating to those areas. The Museum works to encourage education, creativity, dialogue and research in relation to such cultures, and strives to be accessible to as wide an audience as possible.

The Museum was founded by Brian McElney OBE. Brian spent his entire working life practising law in Hong Kong and it was during this time that he was drawn to East Asian, and especially Chinese art. In 1958 he bought his first piece, an ivory goat and kid, after which Brian’s collection grew to include jades, ceramics, scholar’s studio objects and bronzes.

After his retirement from law in 1983, Brian returned to England and procured the funds for the restoration and refurbishment of the Georgian building that houses the Museum, founding the Museum itself in 1990. Mr McElney donated his private collection to form the Museum, which he had created as a UK educational charity, opening to the public in 1993. Although the bulk of the objects come from this original donation, new donations and acquisitions have been made over the years.


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