Kannon Bosatsu (Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva)
Part (statue): 66 inches (167.64 cm)
Part (base): 13 1/2 inches (34.29 cm)
Part (mandorla): 78 3/4 inches (200.03 cm)
- S21
Exhibition of Japanese Art, Mills College, CA, March 26 -May 3, 1936, no. 27.
Japanese Festival, University of Michigan Museum of Art, October 1952.
According to Buddhist belief, bodhisattvas are enlightened beings who remain in this world to help others along the path to enlightenment. Of these, Kannon (called Guanyin in Chinese), Bodhisattva of Mercy and Compassion, is the most popular. Kannon answers prayers and delivers the faithful from catastrophe.
This statue is carved from a single block of wood; only the arms are attached separately. Its surface was once painted and would have been covered by jewelry and various offerings. The halo behind the figure and the pedestal are later restorations.
With Yamanaka & Co., New York, by 1931;
Purchased from Yamanaka & Co. by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1931.
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): 126 (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): 161 (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): 213 (repro.).
Junkichi Mayuyama, ed., Japanese Art in the West, (Tokyo: Mayuyama & Co., 1966), 29 (repro.).
Hugo Munsterberg, Sculpture of the Orient, (New York: Dover Publications, 1972), pl.132 (repro.).
Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Orient, 5th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973): 99 (repro.).
Zenzō Shimizu, “Japanese Sculptures in America and Canada, I”, Bukkyō geijutsu/ Ars Buddhica, no. 126 (September, 1979): 85, fig. 71 (repro.).
Bunsaku Kurata, ed., Zaigai nihon no shihō, Vol. 8, Chōkoku (Tokyo: Mainichi Shinbun, 1980): pl. 22, 125 (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): 354 (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): 378 (repro.).
