Foreground: a funerary figure of a winged lion, from a temple in Bali, Indonesia. It was donated to the Peabody in 1968 by John Gates, who had received it as a gift from the family of Bali’s governor.  Behind the lion is a collection of early 20th-century “totem poles” from New Guinea, donated in 1968 by physicist and tribal-art collector George Kennedy. The carvings, worked in ebony, mahogany, and other hardwoods with hand tools, represent ancestors of the Abelan tribe of northeast New Guinea.

All photos ©Richard Barnes