Listen to storyteller Sara Porkalob discuss this artwork.

The Golden Boy’s Surgery

In 1957, Time Magazine reported on a new discovery about this statue, known as “The Golden Boy.” Hearing objects rattling inside, the museum’s founding director Richard E. Fuller became curious and had it x-radiographed. He himself performed the operation to look inside, with museum staff and scholars as witnesses. Fuller placed the wood figure face down and incised through the layers: a top coat of paint over layers of original gilt lacquer. He cut along a path where someone had cut previously—several centuries after this Chinese figure was made, Tibetan monks had re-consecrated it by opening a rectangular section on the back to insert items. Fuller carefully removed all of these items with a pair of surgical tongs.