The great interest aroused in things "Oriental" by the displays at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in 1876 led to some of the first purchases for the newly established Museum: lacquerware, furniture, ceramics, and other decorative arts from the Chinese, Japanese, Moroccan, and Persian exhibitors. The Centennial also provided a second group of Japanese ceramics through the later bequest of Philadelphia porcelain manufacturer (and one of the exhibition's jurors) General Hector Tyndale. These early holdings of Asian art were further supplemented by an important gift of Chinese ceramics from Mrs. Bloomfield Moore in the late 19th century.

After the arrival of the distinguished Orientalist Langdon Warner as Museum Director in 1917, the Division of Eastern Art was formalized as a curatorial department. Horace H. F. Jayne was named curator a few years later in 1923, and he--together with Director Fiske Kimball--oversaw both the growth of the collections and the addition of important architectural units, among them an evocative Chinese scholar's study and Japanese ceremonial teahouse.

Jayne's successor as curator from 1955 until 1986 was Jean Gordon Lee. During her tenure, the Museum’s encyclopedic survey of Chinese ceramics and its outstanding collection of Persian and Turkish carpets grew significantly. A series of acquisitions of fine Chinese hardwood furniture of the Ming Dynasty, and the late 7th-century Khmer sandstone Avalokiteshvara--known as one of the most highly regarded Southeast Asian sculptures in a Western collection--marked other notable additions of the period.

In recent decades, the Japanese collections have been expanded and given new shape with gifts and purchases of exquisitely painted scrolls by the great 17th-century artist Hon’ami Koetsu, screens, Buddhist sculpture, decorative arts, 20th-century craft, and contemporary ceramics. The holdings of Korean art have been augmented with important examples of ceramics, lacquer, and painting. Today, the East Asian Art Department is responsible for a variety of works of art from all parts of the continent, with holdings estimated at over 11,000 objects.