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A dark bronze sculpture of a man seated with his leg crossed and his head on his hand.

The bronze sculpture is of a man seated. His left leg is bent down and his right leg is bent with his ankle on top of his left knee. His left arm is down at his side with his left hand on top of his crossed ankle. His right arm is bent with his right hand holding his face. He is wearing a cloth around his waist and a crown on his head.

Gallery Text

Buddhist proselytizers from northern China and Central Asia first entered the Korean peninsula in the final decades of the fourth century. In the centuries that followed, Korean Buddhists developed their own traditions of ritual practice and systems of philosophical thought, but they were also in constant dialogue with their monastic counterparts in China, exchanging both texts and images. Icons were frequently presented as gifts among the rulers, merchants, and monks of China, Korea, and Japan, which led to a high degree of stylistic cross-pollination across the three cultures. Private, portable icons like these gilt bronze images—which, though crafted in Korea, share many visual traits with similar objects from China and Japan—provided an ideal medium for intercultural artistic and religious exchange. Such images are likely to have been worshipped on small altars in domestic settings. The portable shrine displayed here, from the Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910), helps us to imagine the original display contexts for the images that surround it. A mobile, self-contained setting for icon worship, it differs little in form, material, or concept from the portable shrines that devotees first brought from India to Central Asia and China centuries before.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1943.56.1
Title
Crowned, Pensive Bodhisattva, Probably Mirŭk Posal (Bodhisattva Maitreya), Seated with the Left Leg Pendant, the Right Ankle Resting on the Left Knee, the Left foot Resting on a Lotus Blossom, the Right Hand Supporting the Chin
Other Titles
Alternate Title: Mi-reuk Bo-sal
Classification
Sculpture
Work Type
sculpture, figurine
Date
probably Silla Kingdom, late 6th-early 7th century
Places
Creation Place: East Asia, Korea
Period
Three Kingdoms period, Silla, 57 BCE-668 CE
Culture
Korean
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/203786

Location

Location
Level 1, Room 1610, Buddhist Sculpture, Buddhism and Early East Asian Buddhist Art
View this object's location on our interactive map

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Bronze with traces of gilding
Dimensions
H. 15.1 x W. 5.1 x D. 5.5 cm (5 15/16 x 2 x 2 3/16 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Grenville L. Winthrop (1864-1943), New York (by 1943), bequest; to Fogg Art Museum, 1943.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop
Accession Year
1943
Object Number
1943.56.1
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Exhibition History

  • S425: East Asian Buddhist Sculpture, Harvard University Art Museums, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 10/20/1985 - 04/30/2008
  • Re-View: S228-230 Arts of Asia, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 05/31/2008 - 06/01/2013
  • 32Q: 1610 Buddhist Art I, Harvard Art Museums, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050

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