1985.807.1: The Lotus Sutra (Miaofa Lianhua Jing) with Illustrated Frontispiece
Prints
This object does not yet have a description.
Identification and Creation
- Object Number
- 1985.807.1
- Title
- The Lotus Sutra (Miaofa Lianhua Jing) with Illustrated Frontispiece
- Other Titles
- Alternate Title: Miao-fa lien-hua ching
- Classification
- Prints
- Work Type
- handscroll
- Date
- c. 1130 - 1190
- Places
- Creation Place: East Asia, China
- Period
- Song dynasty, Southern Song period, 1127-1279
- Culture
- Chinese
- Persistent Link
- https://hvrd.art/o/94680
Physical Descriptions
- Medium
- First from a set of eight scrolls; woodblock-printed, accordion-fold book mounted as a handscroll; ink on paper; the frontispiece illustration with printed signature reading "Siming Chen Gao," indicating that it was designed by Chen Gao.
- Dimensions
- frontispiece: H. 16.7 x W. 59.3 cm (6 9/16 x 23 3/8 in.)
Provenance
- Recorded Ownership History
- Sorimachi Shigeo, Tokyo (by 1965), sold; to Philip Hofer, Cambridge, Massachusetts, (1965-1985), bequest; to The Harvard University Art Museums.
State, Edition, Standard Reference Number
- Standard Reference Number
- A 10-038 (Suzuki Kei)
Acquisition and Rights
- Credit Line
- Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Bequest of the Hofer Collection of the Arts of Asia
- Accession Year
- 1985
- Object Number
- 1985.807.1
- Division
- Asian and Mediterranean Art
- Contact
- am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
- Permissions
-
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Descriptions
- Description
- Printed during the twelfth century, this scroll, together with the seven others from the set, contain the text of the Lotus Sutra (Chinese, Miaofa Lianhua Jing; Sanskrit, Saddharma-pundarika Sutra), the most popular and important of all Buddhist sutras in East Asia. The frontispiece depicts thirty episodes from the text that would have been well known to all worshippers; the stories have been arranged into a single, unified composition. A closely related sutra, perhaps printed from the same woodblocks and now preserved in the temple Denkõ-ji, Nara, has been designated a Japanese National Treasure. Another closely related sutra, perhaps also printed from the same woodblocks and now preserved in the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., was long housed within the wooden sculpture known as Prince Shôtoku at Age Two (99.1979.1).
Publication History
- Suzuki Kei, Chugoku kaiga sogo zuroku, Amerika Kanada hen (Comprehensive Illustrated Catalog of Chinese Paintings, Volume 1: American and Canadian Collections), University of Tokyo Press (Tokyo, Japan, 1982), pp. I-58 and I-432, no. A 10-038
- Sören Edgren, Southern Song Printing at Hangzhou, The Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities (Östasiatiska museet) Stockholm, Bulletin no. 61, 1989, p. 204, pl. 15
- Marsha Weidner, ed., Latter Days of the Law: Images of Chinese Buddhism, 850-1850, exh. cat., Spencer Museum of Art (Lawrence, Kansas, 1994), pp. 303-305, cat. 37
- Eugene Wang, Shaping the Lotus Sutra: Buddhist Visual Culture in Medieval China, University of Washington Press (Seattle, 2005), pp. 320-321, fig. 6.2
- Clarissa von Spee, China's Southern Paradise, exh. cat., Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland, 2023), pp. 143-145, cat. 43
Exhibition History
- Buddhist Art: The Later Tradition (2003), Harvard University Art Museums, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 02/01/2003 - 01/04/2004
- China’s Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta, Cleveland Museum of Art, 09/10/2023 - 01/07/2024
Related Objects
Verification Level
This record was created from historic documentation and may not have been reviewed by a curator; it may be inaccurate or incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu