This image shows a person looking to the left of hte image, kneeling on the ground in green skirt, with their hands pressed together infront of them.
Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
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Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College

This image shows a person faceing to the left of hte image, kneeling on the ground, with their hands pressed together. The person has black hair going down their back and is wearing a green skirt and a brown and white robe. The background is mostly dark brown with a large blue spot infront of the person's head and a smaller red spot behind the person's head. The surface of the image is badly work and cracked

Gallery Text

This mural section depicts a kneeling attendant presenting an offering to a bodhisattva who would have been seated to the left of the figure. Though now difficult to identify precisely, the offering seems to be a triple jewel, or triratna, which symbolizes the Three Jewels in which Buddhist worshippers take refuge: the Buddha, the Dharma (the Buddha’s teachings), and the Sangha (the Buddhist community, sometimes defined as monks and nuns, sometimes more generally as all enlightened beings). This section comes from a mural depicting Maitreya, a bodhisattva who currently resides in a distant heaven but who will one day be reborn into our world as the Buddha of the Future. In its original context, this figure was part of an entourage surrounding an attendant bodhisattva to Maitreya.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1924.40.1
Title
Kneeling Attendant Holding a Triple Jewel (from the north wall of Mogao Cave 329, Dunhuang, Gansu province)
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
mural painting
Date
7th century
Places
Creation Place: East Asia, China, Gansu province, Dunhuang
Period
Tang dynasty, 618-907
Culture
Chinese
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/209167

Location

Location
Level 3, Room 3610, University Teaching Gallery
View this object's location on our interactive map

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Section of a wall painting; polychromy on unfired clay
Dimensions
painting proper (irregular): H. 52.5 x W. 26.4 cm (20 11/16 x 10 3/8 in.)
framed: H. 73.7 x W. 48.3 x D. 3.5 cm (29 x 19 x 1 3/8 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
From Mogao Cave 329, Dunhuang, Gansu province; acquired during the First Fogg Expedition to China (1923-24) led by Langdon Warner (1881-1955)

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, First Fogg Expedition to China (1923-1924)
Accession Year
1924
Object Number
1924.40.1
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Sanchita Balachandran, "Research into the Collecting and Conservation History of Chinese Wall Paintings from Dunhuang in the Harvard University Art Museums" (thesis (certificate in conservation), Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, 2004), Unpublished, passim
  • Sanchita Balachandran, Object Lessons: The Politics of Preservation and Museum Building in Western China in the Early Twentieth Century, International Journal of Cultural Property (2007), Vol. 14, No. 1, 1-32

Exhibition History

Subjects and Contexts

  • Google Art Project

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be 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