Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum | Busch-Reisinger Museum | Arthur M. Sackler Museum

This mural section was part of a series of vignettes recounting the recovery of a sculpture of Shakyamuni Buddha believed to have been sponsored by a daughter of the great Indian monarch Ashoka (304–232 BCE) from a river near Yangzhou in the early fourth century. Inscriptions in rectangular cartouches (a fragment of one is visible directly below the skiff) briefly describe each scene of the narrative, which has also been passed down in canonical histories of Chinese Buddhism. The flaming jewels on the tall canopy that covers the Buddha sculpture, together with the fluttering banners that adornthe boat and are held by the assembly of monks nearby, signal the importance of the recovered sculpture and imbue the scene with a sense of celebration.

Object Number

1924.41

Title

Eight Men Ferrying a Statue of the Buddha (from Mogao Cave 323, 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/209770

Medium

Section of a wall painting; polychromy on unfired clay

Dimensions

painting proper (irregular): H. 50.8 x W. 94 cm (20 x 37 in.)
framed: H. 73.7 x W. 114.3 x D. 3.5 cm (29 x 45 x 1 3/8 in.)

Credit Line

Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, First Fogg Expedition to China (1923-1924)

Accession Year

1924

Object Number

1924.41

Division

Asian and Mediterranean Art

Contact

am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu

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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Art Museums" (thesis (certificate in conservation), Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, 2004), Unpublished, passim

Francesca Bewer, A Laboratory for Art: Harvard's Fogg Museum and the Emergence of Conservation in America, 1900-1950, Harvard Art Museum and Yale University Press (U.S.) (Cambridge, MA, 2010), p. 117, fig. 3.18; pp. 118-119, ill. (overleaf)

James C. Dobbins, Behold the Buddha: Religious Meanings of Japanese Buddhist Icons, University of Hawaii Press (Honolulu, 2020), pp. 4-5, fig. 3; p. 247

32Q: 2740 Buddhist II, Harvard Art Museums, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050

Google Art Project

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