Arhat (1235): Art, History and Details

Arhat (1235) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

An arhat (Nahan in Korean), an advanced disciple of the Buddha, is represented here in profile with a halo encircling his head. This particular arhat is Segongyang jonja, numbered as the 464th of 500 arhats. He sits on a woven bamboo stool, is luring a dragon into an alms bowl. This hanging scroll is one of only about ten known works that survive today, all of which (except for Cleveland’s piece) are currently preserved in Korea or Japan.

Object facts

• Title: Arhat
• Date: 1235
• Culture: Korea, Goryeo dynasty (918–1392)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Hanging scroll; ink and slight color on silk
• Dimensions: Image: 52.7 x 40.6 cm (20 3/4 x 16 in.); Overall: 140 x 54.1 cm (55 1/8 x 21 5/16 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Korean Art
• Accession number: 1979.71

A detail from the museum

This painting that depicts an arhat, a human being who has achieved enlightenment, used to be part of a set of 500 hanging scrolls.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Yamato Bunkakan 大和文華館. Tokubetsuten Kōrai butsuga: Waga kuni ni shōraisareta ringoku no konjiki no hotoketachi 特別展高麗仏画 : わが国に請来された隣国の金色の仏たち [Special exhibition Korean Buddhist paintings of Koryo dynasty (918–1392)]. Nara: Yamato Bunkakan, 1978.
• Lee, Sherman E. "The Year in Review for 1979." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 67, no. 3 (1980): 58–99.
• Kikutake Junichi 菊竹淳一 and Yoshida Hiroshi 吉田宏志, eds. Kōrai butsuga 高麗仏画 [Goryeo Buddhist painting]. Tokyo: Asahi shimbunsha, 1981.

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.