Standing Bodhisattva
CultureChinese
Dateca. 520-525 C.E.
MediumGray limestone with heavily restored coloring
DimensionsOverall: 45 × 15 1/2 × 9 inches (114.3 × 39.37 × 22.86 cm)
Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust
Object number33-90
On View
On viewGallery Location
- 204
Collections
DescriptionProvincial sculpture of a standing figure wearing heavy drapery with stiff, regular pleats, crossed scarves, a cusped necklace, and crown with heavy ribbons. The figure's right hand is held in a gesture of abhaya (reassurance), and the left hand is held in a gesture of varada (wish-bestowing). Originally painted and gilded. Pigment in several colors still remains on the figure.Exhibition HistoryFar Eastern Art Exhibit, US Army Training Center, Fort Leonard Wood, MO. May 1968.
This is a provincial sculpture originating some distance from the creative centers of the time. All the details of the stiff, regular pleats, crossed scarves, cusped necklace, and archaic smile derive from the high style of the 520s. The up-country source of the figure is betrayed by the squat proportions, the heavy treatment of the crown ribbons, and the over-large hands in the gestures signifying "reassurance" and "wish-bestowing." While the result is not great art, it is expressive of a naïve sincerity. Like all Chinese Buddhist sculpture, it was originally painted and gilded.
With Celestin Liu, Peiping (mdoern-day Beijing), China, by August 10, 1932 [1];
Purchased from Celestin Liu, through Laurence Sickman, by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1933.
NOTES:
[1] See note from Laurence Sickman to Langdon Warner, August 10, 1932, Harvard University Pusey Library, Langdon Warner Personal Archive, HUG4872.1010, box 12, folder 20, copy in Nelson-Atkins curatorial file.
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), 95
(repro.).
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