Album of Daoist and Buddhist Themes: Procession of Daoist Deities: Leaf 18 (1200s): Art, History and Details

Album of Daoist and Buddhist Themes: Procession of Daoist Deities: Leaf 18 (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 is part of an important album of 50 drawings encompassing three subjects: processions of Daoist deities to the celestial spheres, the Ten Kings of Hell, and Erlang’s Campaign to Rid Mount Guankou of Dangerous Beasts (soushan tu 搜山圖). In this section of the Daoist pantheon, Zhong Kui 鍾馗, the hero who fights demons, is portrayed with two ghost attendants. One holds a handle at the end of which is a large wheel with drums. Thunder, which drums can evoke, is a theme of many of the Daoist Pantheon leaves in this album.

Object facts

• Title: Album of Daoist and Buddhist Themes: Procession of Daoist Deities: Leaf 18
• Date: 1200s
• Culture: China, Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Album; ink on paper
• Dimensions: Painting: 34.2 x 38.4 cm (13 7/16 x 15 1/8 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Album leaf
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 2004.1.18

A detail from the museum

Zhong Kui’s bird-faced attendant carries a load of scrolls on his back.

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.
• 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.