• Baua Devi: Untitled, 1983; watercolor; 22 1/8 x 30 1/8 in.; BAMPFA, museum purchase.

Five Tables of Animals, Wild and Fantastic

Snakes and elephants and dragons, oh my. On view this session, good luck snakes twine and multiply in Mithila artist Baua Devi’s drawings; elephants abound in Indian playing cards and miniatures, as well as a 1979 Joel Sternfeld color photograph; dragons twist and coil in an atmospheric fan painting by Zhou Xun and a sixteenth-century woodcut of St. George by Giuseppe Scolari; tigers prowl fiercely in Paul Ranson’s 1893 color lithograph Tigre dans le jungle and cutely threaten in a contemporaneous Chinese hell scroll, and more!