Head of a Buddha

CultureChinese

Dateca. 490 C.E.

MediumCoarse sandstone

DimensionsOverall: 15 × 7 × 8 inches (38.1 × 17.78 × 20.32 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number31-83

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

East Asian Art

Terms

DescriptionHead of a Buddha from cave temples at Yun-Kang. Long, narrow head, with plain ushnisha, sharp, pointed nose, archaic smile, almond-shaped eyes, long pendant ears.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin (OH) College. March - April 1954.

Gallery Label

This head comes from the cave chapels of Yungang in northern Shanxi Province. The simple planes of the forms, the small chin, the tiny mouth with upturned corners, and the long slender nose signal an archaic phase of Buddhist sculpture in northern China. The narrowness of the face and the high spring of the eyebrows suggest a date within the latest works at Yungang, probably in the 490s. The two sides of the face have been deliberately distorted to compensate for a position high on a wall above and to the left of the viewer.

Provenance

Yungang, Shanxi province, China;

Yamanaka, & Co., New York;

Purchased from Yamanaka, & Co. by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1931.

Published References

Art News, 32:57, Dec. 9, 1933 (repro.).

Burling, J., Chinese Art, pl. 240 (repro.).

Oberlin College, Ohio, March 29 – April 9, 1954 (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), 111 (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), 149 (repro.).

Anil de Silver-Vigier, The Life of the Buddha Retold from Ancient Sources (London: Phaidon Press Ltd., 1955), 65 (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) 184 (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 Occident, 5th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 29 (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), 303 (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), 310, fig. 90 (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.