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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
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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 Works

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