Album of Daoist and Buddhist Themes: Search the Mountain: Leaf 42 (1200s): Art, History and Details

Album of Daoist and Buddhist Themes: Search the Mountain: Leaf 42 (1200s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This extraordinary album has 50 paintings on a variety of religious subjects. They were likely created by several master craftsmen to share with studio apprentices as models for fulfilling commissions. The Jade Emperor and the Daoist pantheon make up the first 26 leaves. The next 14 leaves portray the Buddhist Ten Kings of Hell administering punishments to the dead. The third section, called “Clearing the Mountains,” features divine soldiers, led presumably by the deity Erlang Shen 二郎神, fighting undesirable creatures.

Object facts

• Title: Album of Daoist and Buddhist Themes: Search the Mountain: Leaf 42
• 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: 2004.1.42

A detail from the museum

Part-human part-animal figures surrounded by flames are chased by two demon-soldiers, one wielding a whip or club and the other a spear.

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.
• Sotheby's, London. Catalogue of Important Chinese Art ... [from Various Sources]. 25 March 1947. Lot 118.
• Chou, Ju-hsi and Anita Chung. Silent poetry: Chinese paintings from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: 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.