The exotic culture of Tibet has been of enormous interest to Westerners in recent decades. Sacred Visions, which accompanies a major exhibition opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in October 1998, is devoted to a period of extraordinary cultural achievement, when Tibet became known as the Buddhist holy land.From the 11th to the mid-15th century, Tibetans commissioned and created exquisite paintings, or thankas, that incorporated traditions from eastern India, Nepal, and China, as well as their own Buddhist imagery. Though Tibet was closed to the West until the early 20th century and then closed again by the Chinese in 1950, many magnificent thankas have survived in Western collections. Sacred Visions brings these rare masterpieces together for the first time.

Superbly illustrated, Sacred Visions includes scholarly essays that provide historical, stylistic, and technical information on these remarkable works. The related exhibition travels to the Reitberg, Zurich, in February 1999.