How has humanity given form to spiritual beliefs across time and cultures? Living with the Gods: Art, Beliefs, and Peoples explores that quest in an expansive exhibition featuring more than 200 objects from the past 4,000 years.

Images: Top row, left to right:

Mosque Lamp, Egypt, c. 1319, colorless glass; blown and decorated with polychrome enamels and gold, The al-Sabah Collection, Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah, Kuwait, LNS 5G.

Incensario Stand with Seated Ruler, Central and South America (Maya), 600–1000, earthenware with pigment, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, museum purchase funded by the Alfred C. Glassell, Jr. Accessions Endowment, 2022.681.

Gangajali (Sacred Water Urn), Jaipur, 20th century, silver, Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum Trust. © Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum.

Middle row, left to right

Hanukkah Lamp, Eastern Galicia or western Ukraine, 1752–53, copper alloy, the Jewish Museum, New York, gift of Dr. Harry G. Friedman, F 1423.

Simone Cantarini, The Risen Christ, 1644–48, oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, gift of Azita Bina and Elmar W. Seibel and Henry H. and Zoe Oliver Sherman Fund, 2002.340. © 2024 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Shiva Nataraja, India, late 19th–early 20th century, bronze, collection of John and Fausta Eskenazi. Photo: John J. Eskenazi Ltd.

Bottom row, left to right

Figure (Mbulu Ngulu), Kota Region peoples (possibly Mahongwe or Shaké) Democratic Republic of Congo, late 19th–early 20th century, wood, brass, and copper, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of Frank Carroll in memory of Frank and Eleanor Carroll, 2020.495.

Ernst Mattäi, after Bertel Thorvaldsen, Venus, 1816–20, marble, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, museum purchase funded by the Alice Pratt Brown Museum Endowment, 85.309.

Buddha in Meditation, Gandharan, Afghanistan or Pakistan, 4th–5th century, stucco, private collection. Photo: Mark French, Hong Kong.