Guardian Lion

CultureChinese

Dateca. 681 C.E.

MediumGray limestone

DimensionsOverall: 55 1/2 × 39 × 12 inches (140.97 × 99.06 × 30.48 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number33-670

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

East Asian Art

Terms

DescriptionSeated guardian lion, right side of the body with head full face. Snarling expression, left front paw raised in a threatening attitudeGallery Label

Gallery Label

This lion is one of a pair that originally stood guard over the entrance to the Zhiyun cave chapels at Longmen, near Looyang, Henan Province. Formally, Tang Dynasty sculpture moved away from the compact masses of Northern Qi and Sui sculpture toward freer, more plastically active modeling. Expressively, sculpture became more particularized, with naturalism widely used where iconographically appropriate. Lions were considered powerful guardians of the faith and were appropriate to entrances both sacred and secular.

Provenance

Wanfo Cave (Zhiyun Cave), Longmen, Henan province, China;

With Otto Burchard, Peking (today Beijing), by March-July 1933 [1];

Purchased from Burchard, through Laurence Sickman, by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1933.

NOTES:

[1] Laurence Sickman’s invoice for this purchase lists David R. Stewart as the vendor. Stewart’s identity and involvement in the transaction is unclear, but correspondence in the Nelson-Atkins archives indicates that Sickman purchased the Guardian Lion from Burchard. See especially Sickman to J.C. Nichols, July 10, 1933, NAMA Archives, Sickman Miscellaneous, J.C. Nichols 1932-34.

Published References

Chavannes, Edouard. Mission Archeologique dans la Chine Septentrionale, I, 2 and atlas (Publications de l’Ecole Francaise d’Extreme-Orient 13). Paris: Ernst Leroux, 1915, vol. 1-2, part 2, no. 306 (repro.).

Art digest, 8:31, Dec. 1, 1933, ill (repro.).

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Handbook of the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1933), 97 (repro.).

Mizuno Seiichi and Nagahiro Toshio, Kanan Rakuyo Ryumon sekkutsu no kenkyu (A study of the Buddhist cave-temples at Lung-men, Honan). (Tokyo: Zauho kankokai, 1941), p. 33, fig. 30 (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), 112 (repro.).

Sekai bijutsu zenshū (Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 1960-), vol. 8, pl. 9 (repro.).

Kansas City Times, July 24, 1958, article by Bob Sanford (repro.).

Longmen shiqu yanjiusuo, ed. Longmen liusan diaoxiang ji (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1993), p. 87, fig. 100 (repro.).

Amy McNair, “On the patronage by Tang dynasty nuns at Wanfo Grotto, Longmen” Artibus Asiae, Vol. LIX, 3/4, (2000), MM, p. 164, fig. 7 (repro.).

Amy E. McNair, Donors of Longmen: Faith, Politics, and Patronage in Medieval Chinese Buddhist Sculpture (Honolulu, 2007), fig. 7.8, p. 133 (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), 308 (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), 323, fig. 121.

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.