Buddha draped in robes portraying the Realms of Desire

According to the sacred text of the Lotus Sutra, when the historical Buddha delivered a sermon a vision of the entire cosmos often appeared before him, which is why he was sometimes called the Cosmological Buddha. The decoration on the front and back of this figure's monastic robe features scenes of the life of the historical Buddha and cosmic imagery.

On the front chest of the robe, Mount Sumeru, a sacred Buddhist mountain believed to connect heaven and earth, is depicted with two snakes, or naga, entwined around it. Scenes below illustrate the historical Buddha as a prince before his enlightenment. The tortures of hell appear above the hem.

?-1923

Taku Shanfang, Beijing, method of acquisition unknown [1]

From 1923

Freer Gallery of Art, purchased by Carl Whiting Bishop (1881-1942) from Taku Shanfang, Beijing [2]

Notes:

[1] See Original Bishop List, Objects of Stone, No. S-9, copy in object file.

[2] Carl Whiting Bishop purchased this on behalf of the Freer Gallery of Art on December 24, 1923, in Beijing from the art dealer, Taku Shanfang. See note 1. In 1922, the Smithsonian Institution and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston jointly appointed Bishop, a trained archaeologist, as the leader of a four-year archaeological expedition to China. Around the same time, the Freer Gallery of Art appointed Bishop as a curator and charged him with purchasing works for the museum while abroad. This work was first accepted into the Freer Gallery of Art Study Collection in December 1923. In 1968, it was transferred to the Permanent Collection of the Freer Gallery of Art. See Bishop Collection, Collections Management Office.

Research updated April 18, 2023

Freer Gallery of Art Collection

Promise of Paradise (October 14, 2017 - ongoing)

Body of Devotion: The Cosmic Buddha in 3D (January 30, 2016 to July 9, 2017)

Promise of Paradise: Early Chinese Buddhist Sculpture (December 1, 2012 to January 3, 2016)

Buddhist Art (May 9, 1993 to August 9, 2011)

Chinese Art—Stone Sculpture (September 1, 1979 to March 14, 1982)

Chinese Art (January 1, 1963 to March 6, 1981)

Taku Shanfang

From National Museum of Asian Art, released by the Smithsonian under CC0 through its Open Access programme. The Smithsonian does not endorse ModelsXi. Its own page has the object record and other copies, including full-resolution and print-ready files where they exist. The file is measured in millimetres, so engines that expect metres will show it 1,000 times too large; the size above is the real one.