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Buddhist Stele with Scenes from the Lotus Sutra
Buddhist Stele with Scenes from the Lotus Sutra

Buddhist Stele with Scenes from the Lotus Sutra

CultureChinese
Dateca. 537 C.E.
MediumDark-gray limestone
DimensionsOverall (stele with base): 106 × 40 × 21 inches (269.24 × 101.6 × 53.34 cm)
Part (stele): 96 × 31 1/2 × 12 3/4 inches, 1 tons 1640 lb. (243.84 × 80.01 × 32.39 cm, 1651.09 kg)
Part (base): 10 × 40 × 21 inches, 777 lb. (25.4 × 101.6 × 53.34 cm, 352.44 kg)
Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust
Object number37-27
On View
On view
Gallery Location
  • 204
Collections
DescriptionStone carved in relief with scenes from the life of Buddha, and figures of bodhisattvas, attendants, monks, guardian lions, and other animals, figures of donors, and names of donors inscribed.Gallery Label
This stele was set up by a number of donors whose names appear on the front, sides, and back.  The iconographic scheme is based on the Lotus Sutra, the most celebrated of Buddhist scriptures.  On the left side is depicted the events surrounding the birth of the Buddha, who is also shown in the central niche of the front, flanked by two bodhisattvas and two monks.  Above the Buddha's niche is the stupa of Prabhutaratna, a Buddha of the past who has come to hear Shakyamuni Buddha preach the Lotus Sutra.  At the very base is shown the death of the Buddha, or rather, his entrance into Nirvana.  The low pictorial relief carving, with its insistent linear elaboration bespeaks a native Chinese sensibility, while large heads and full bodies of the figures in niches adumbrate the more fully modeled figures seen on the Northern Qi period stele opposite.
Provenance

Ruicheng County, Shanxi Province, China;

With Dr. Otto Burchard, Peiping (modern-day Beijing), China;

Purchased from Burchard by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1937.

Published References

Sekai bijutsu zenshū, vol. 7, Zhongguo gudai (Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 1960), pl. 120 (repro.).

University Prints, Newton, 1938, Early Chinese Art, series O, section II, pl. 153 (repro.).

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 2nd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1941), 108 (repro.).

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 3rd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1949), 151, (repro.).

Judith Burling and A. H., Chinese Art (New York: 1953), pl. 238 (repro.).

J. Leroy Davidson, The Lotus Sutra in Chinese Art (New Haven: 1954), pl. 9-10 (repro.).

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 186 (repro.).

Laurence Sickman and Alexander Soper, Art and Architecture of China (London, 1956, 1960, 1968, 1971), pl. 38 A; (paperback ed., 1971), 107, fig. 67 (repro.).

René Grousset, Chinese Art and Culture (New York: 1959), pl. 26 (repro.).

Ross E. Taggart, George L. McKenna, and Marc F. Wilson, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. II, Art of the Orient. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 32 (repro.).

Laurence Sickman, “A sixth-century Buddhist stele” Apollo, special issue for the Asian art collection in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Vol. XCVII, no. 133 (March 1973), 12-17 (repro.).

Chinese Art in Western Collections, Sculpture, vol. 3, (Tokyo, Kodansha, 1973), pl. 30 (repro.).

Silva-Vigier, Life of Buddha, pl. 104 (details) (repro.).

Yen Chuan-ying.  “The Double Tree Motif in Chinese Buddhist Iconography, Part II” National Palace Museum Bulletin, vol. XIV, no. 6 (Jan-Feb 1980), 1-13 (repro.).

Journal of the Classical Chinese Furniture Society.  Volume one, Number one (Winter quarter 1990), 31, fig. 10 (repro.).

Sarah Handler, “The Revolution in Chinese Furniture: Moving from Mat to Chair” Asian Art Vol. IV, no. 3 (Summer 1991) (repro.).

Journal of the Classical Chinese Furniture Society, Volume 3, Number one (Winter quarter 1992), 30,  fig. 6 (repro.).

Takeuchi Yoshinori, ed. Buddhist Spirituality (New York: Crossroad, 1993), 315, fig. 22 (repro.).

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 304 (repro.).

Matsubara Saburō 松原三郎, Chūgoku Bukkyō chōkoku shiron 中国仏教彫刻史論 (Tōkyō : Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, Heisei 7 1995), Plate Vol. I, 315, 316 (repro.).

Jason Steuber, ‘Shakyamuni and Prabhutaratna in 5th and 6th Century Chinese Buddhist Art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art” Arts of Asia, no. 1-3, (March-April 2006), 85-103, fig 14a-b, p. 95 (repro.).

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 313, fig. 94 (repro.).

Sonya S. Lee, Surviving nirvana: death of the Buddha in Chinese visual culture (Hong Kong : Hong Kong University Press, 2010) (repro.).

Yen Chuan-ying,“Life and Death: the Development of Nirvana Images in the Northern Dynasties” in Old Society and New Belief: Religious Transformation in China and Rome, ca. 1st-6th Centuries, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016) (repro.).

Information about a particular artwork or image, including provenance information, is based upon historic information and may not be currently accurate or complete. Research on artwork and images is an ongoing process, and the information about a particular artwork or image may not reflect the most current information available to the Museum. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about a particular artwork or image, please e-mail provenance@nelson-atkins.org.