Album of Daoist and Buddhist Themes: Kings of Hells: Leaf 29 (1200s): Art, History and Details

Album of Daoist and Buddhist Themes: Kings of Hells: Leaf 29 (1200s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This leaf belongs to the album’s second series of narratives, Ten Kings of Hells. It demonstrates a Chinese-Buddhist approach in which the netherworld is divided into ten realms, each ruled by one of these kings. This particular version portrays the king in a benevolent guise, though his identity remains unclear. He is draped in a robe and holds an ivory plaque. A vertical scroll hangs to his left, depicting in the lower two-thirds a rectangular architectural plan with buildings aligned in a symmetrical arrangement not unlike a Buddhist temple or a Confucian shrine. Above, the scene also features a building and could show a specific mountain. One of the Ten Kings is known as the King of Taishan (or Mt. Tai). This depiction would represent a unique treatment of the king, not shared with other renditions of the same figure elsewhere.

Object facts

• Title: Album of Daoist and Buddhist Themes: Kings of Hells: Leaf 29
• Date: 1200s
• Culture: China, Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Album; ink on paper
• Dimensions: Painting: 34 x 38.4 cm (13 3/8 x 15 1/8 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Album leaf
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 2004.1.29

A detail from the museum

This King of Hell wears a hat with two slender side arms—similar to the headgear worn by Song dynasty emperors.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund in honor of Dr. Ju-hsi Chou and Gift of various donors to the department of Asian Art (by exchange)

Further reading listed by the museum

• Martin, F. R.. Zeichnungen nach Wu tao-tze aus der götter- und sagenwelt Chinas. München: F. Bruckmann a.g, 1913.
• Christie, Manson & Woods International Inc. Fine Chinese Ceramics, Paintings and Works of Art. 21 September 2000. Lot 204.
• Chou, Ju-hsi and Anita Chung. Silent poetry: Chinese paintings from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2015.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.