H x W x D: 33 x 17.5 x 15.4 cm (13 x 6 7/8 x 6 1/16 in)
Type:
Sculpture
Origin:
China
Date:
ca. 575
Period:
Northern Qi dynasty
Label:
This sculpture of a bodhisattva, or enlightened being, probably represents the Buddha of the Future (Maitreya in the Indian language Sanskrit) while he was waiting to be reborn into the world as a Buddha. Maitreya waits in heaven meditating beneath a Dragon Tree, which Chinese sculptors typically interpreted to be a ginkgo, like the tree here. The depiction of children emerging from lotuses in a pond on the base of this sculpture is a rare detail on an image of Maitreya.
Provenance:
To 1911
Ta Ge Shang, Beijing, to 1911 [1]
From 1911 to 1919
Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased from Ta Ge Shang in 1911 [2]
From 1920
Freer Gallery of Art, gift of Charles Lang Freer in 1920 [3]
Notes:
[1] See Original Miscellaneous List, S.I. 308, pg. 76, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives.
[2] See note 1.
[3] The original deed of Charles Lang Freer's gift was signed in 1906. The collection was received in 1920 upon the completion of the Freer Gallery.
Collection:
Freer Gallery of Art Collection
Exhibition History:
Encountering the Buddha: Art and Practice Across Asia (October 14, 2017 to February 6, 2022)
Promise of Paradise (October 14, 2017 - ongoing)
Buddhist Art (May 9, 1993 to August 9, 2011)
Studies in Connoisseurship 1923-1983 (September 23, 1983 to March 1, 1984)
Early Chinese Pottery and Scultpure, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1916 (March 6 to October 15, 1916)
