Zanabazar | Galleria Borghese

20 Jan – 22 Feb 2026

From January 20 to February 22, 2026, the Galleria Borghese welcomes, in collaboration with the Turin Museum of Oriental Art, two extraordinary works by Mongolian artist Zanabazar, proposing an unprecedented relationship between East and West in the sign of “global Baroque.”

In the century of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, absolute genius of European Baroque – sculptor, painter and architect whose ideal home is today the Galleria Borghese, thanks to the patronage of Cardinal Scipione Borghese – in Asia an equally great figure emerges: Zanabazar (1635–1723). Born in the heart of the Asian steppe, within one of the vast empires ever built by humanity, Eshidorji belonged to the noble lineage of Genghis Khan. Becoming famous by his spiritual name, Zanabazar, he was recognized as Öndör Gegeen, “His Holiness the Illuminated”: first Khutuktu Jetsundamba, title of the highest religious authority of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia, venerated as the reincarnation of one of the five hundred original disciples of the Buddha.

An exceptional spiritual leader with extraordinary charisma, Zanabazar was also a brilliant linguist and, above all, the greatest Mongolian sculptor of the modern age. Works deeply inspired by travels and stays in Tibetan monasteries are attributed to him and his disciples, venerated as sacred objects in places of worship and temples he founded throughout Mongolia. Among these, representations of Tara stand out for their highest aesthetic value: feminine manifestations of the Buddha, divinities linked to protection, liberation and inner states of being. Zanabazar was able to spread Buddhism in Mongolia on an unprecedented scale, making it accessible to ordinary believers. His intention was to create sculptures capable of speaking directly to the eye and soul: natural, harmonious forms, “warm to the sight,” as the Mongols would define them.

Bernini and Zanabazar left an indelible mark on their respective cultures, one in Europe, the other in Asia. Both inaugurated new artistic languages, developing innovative visions and unprecedented methods for reinterpreting traditional themes and subjects, giving rise to models destined to profoundly influence subsequent generations. Two distant worlds, a single creative force capable of changing the history of art.

The two works on display – a refined green Tara and a self-portrait sculpture in bronze of Zanabazar himself enthroned – come from the Chinggis Khaan National Museum in Ulan Bator and are presented to the public in a context of dialogue and unprecedented comparison. For the first time, works by this artist reach Europe and Italy. For the first time in history, visitors to a Western museum can enjoy these presences and their aesthetic and formal contiguity with our artistic heritage, witnessing an unprecedented encounter full of potential.

The project ideally stems from the exhibition “Global Baroque. The World in Rome in the Time of Bernini” (April 4–July 13, 2025), realized in collaboration with the Scuderie del Quirinale and curated by Francesca Cappelletti and Francesco Freddolini. The exhibition had highlighted the deeply transcultural character of seventeenth-century Rome, shaped by commercial exchanges, diplomatic relations and travels of artists and religious figures, revealing a dense network of connections that anticipated contemporary globalization.

Moving from this intuition, the Galleria Borghese has developed an unprecedented project that explores the complexity of relationships between figures and artifacts apparently extremely distant in historical, geographical and technical context, but surprisingly similar in creative spirit and in the ability to influence the future of the arts in these two remote corners of the world: this too, and especially, is the spirit of “global Baroque.”

For the public, this is a unique opportunity: to admire works usually preserved tens of thousands of kilometers away, brought together for the first time as expressions of the same historical moment.

Galleria Borghese
Rome