Stele of Shakyamuni Buddha Attended by Guanyin Bodhisattva and Dashizhi Bodhisattva

CultureChinese

Date569 C.E.

MediumFine, dark gray limestone with heavy coloring

DimensionsOverall (stele with base): 105 × 33 × 15 1/2 inches (266.7 × 83.82 × 39.37 cm)
Part (stele): 87 × 28 × 13 1/2 inches, 1 tons 1157 lb. (220.98 × 71.12 × 34.29 cm, 1432.01 kg)
Part (base): 18 × 33 × 15 1/2 inches, 852 lb. (45.72 × 83.82 × 39.37 cm, 386.46 kg)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number32-52

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

East Asian Art

Terms

DescriptionStele with a standing figure of a Shakyamuni Buddha accompanied by Kuan-Yin and Ta-Shih-Chih bodhisattvas, carved in high relief; below them are two small seated figures in the corners; above is a pictorial scene of the stupa of Prabhutaratna borne up by an atlantean figure, heavenly beings, and dragons. On the reverse, the top shows a seated Buddha within each of two niches, one above the other, surmounted by intertwined dragons; below that is an inscription recording the name of a priest, Tao-lin, and 200 donors.Gallery Label

Gallery Label

According to Buddhist beliefs, donors would gain merit by commissioning a monument of this kind to be set up in a temple. In the case of this stele there were some 200 donors. The front is dominated by a large standing figure with a pictorial cap above the niche, while the back is treated differently with small niches and a more usual cap of intertwined dragons. The central front figure is Shakyamuni Buddha, flanked by bodhisattvas. At the top of the cap in the center is the stupa of a long extinct Buddha, Prabhutaratna. The more linear styles characteristic of earlier periods have been abandoned in favor of a far more full-bodied and plastic manner derived from Indian sculpture of the Gupta period. The sculptor hesitantly tried to lend movement to the two bodhisattvas by raising one foot and carving a "movement bump" on the knee of that leg.

Provenance

Changzi County, Shanxi Province, China;

With Celestin Liu, Peiping (modern-day Beijing), China, by October 18, 1931-1932;

Purchased from Liu, through Laurence Sickman and Otto Burchard, by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1932.

NOTES:

[1] According to Laurence Sickman, in a letter to Langdon Warner, November 5, 1931, dealer Celestin Liu assembled a consortium of Peking and Tientsin-based dealers to acquire this object from a private owner. Harvard University Pusey Library, Langdon Warner Personal Archive, HUG 4872.1010, box 12, folders 20-21, copies in Nelson-Atkins curatorial files.

Published References

University prints, series O, (Cambridge, Mass.) Pl. 169 (repro.).

Connoisseur, Dec. 1933, p. 419 (repro.).

American Magazine of Art, 26: 525, Dec. 1933, ill (repro.).

Art News, 32:60, Dec. 9, 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), 98 (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.).

Dagny Carter, Four Thousand Years of China’s Art. (New York: Ronald Press, c 1948), ill., p. 146 (repro.).

Leroy Davidson, The Lotus Sutra in Chinese Art. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1954), pl. 22 (repro.).

Laurence Sickman and Alexandra Soper. The Art and Architecture of China. The Pelican History of Art. (Harmodsmorth, 1956), pl. 39A; paperback ed., 1971, p. 112 (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), 187 (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), frontispiece, and p. 34, also detail, reverse (repro.).

Wai-kam Ho, “Buddhist Stele” Laurence Sickman: A Tribute, edited by Michael Churchman. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1988, pp. 30-3 (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), p. 305 (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. II, 454 (repro.).

Jason Steuber, ‘Shakyamuni and Prabhutaratna in 5th and 6th Century Chinese Buddhist Art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art” Arts of Asia, March-April 2006, no. 1-3, pp. 85-103. Fig 19, p. 100 (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), fig. 105, p. 317 (repro.).

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