A wood quiver painted with a hunting scene show frequent communication between Tubo and other regions on the Silk Road. [Photo provided to China Daily]

A family dream

Pritzker, 36, who received his PhD from the University of Oxford with a focus on the early textual history of Tibet, first came to the mountains of the Himalayas at just 4 years old. With his parents, he spent a large part of his childhood living in Nepal.

For him, this exhibition represents a long-held family dream that has finally come true.

The Pritzker family from Chicago is famed for its achievements in entrepreneurship and philanthropy. It funds the Pritzker Architecture Prize, one of the world's leading architecture awards.

David's parents Thomas and Margot Pritzker first came to the Himalayas in 1975 and soon became "addicted" to the place. Since then, the couple has made frequent treks through the mountain ranges there. They first visited the Tibet autonomous region in 1981.

"When we started, the (ancient) Greek and Roman cultures and Renaissance were really well understood in the West, and there was no new ground to be broken," Thomas Pritzker, 69, tells China Daily.

"But here we discovered a lot of new ground to cover," he says. "Tubo studies were in their infancy then, and we could do things that are really exciting."

Thomas Pritzker began to work with the National Cultural Heritage Administration and Sichuan University in 1996 and he later published a series of relevant academic papers following research in the west of Tibet. His son David also nurtured his passion for archaeology during that time.

"One step follows the other, and we've kept going," he smiles. "We're still 'amateurs', but it's good to see David turn into a real professional."

In 2017, when he was asked by the National Cultural Heritage Administration if he would consider exhibiting his family collection in China, he agreed.

His sentiment was echoed by Wang Xudong, the then director of the Dunhuang Academy, who spent over a year contacting institutions abroad and around China to contribute to the exhibition.

The Pritzker Art Collaborative brought 35 artifacts to the exhibition in Dunhuang. It is joined by key Chinese institutions, such as the National Museum of China, the Palace Museum and the Shaanxi History Museum in Xi'an, as well as several other major overseas collections, including the Al Thani Collection owned by the Qatari ruling family, the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, and Hirayama Ikuo Silk Road Museum in Japan.

Abegg-Stiftung, a Swiss collection that mainly features textiles, dropped its "zero loan policy" for the exhibition, opting in favor of cultural exchange and supplying 16 artifacts to the exhibition.

A hanging brocade with roundel featuring a pair of stags locking horns, on loan from Abegg-Stiftung, is one of the most important exhibits on display. It is believed to have been hung as decoration in the tents of Tubo nobles as a symbol of power.

"The Silk Road carries a message for all of us today," Thomas Pritzker says. "The world will always have problems ... Yet each culture has its own history and values, which are unique.

"If we learn more about another country's culture, it will be easier to find ways to solve these problems," he says.

Contact the writer at wangkaihao@chinadaily.com.cn