Ascetic Holding a Skull (c. 500 CE): Art, History and Details

Ascetic Holding a Skull (c. 500 CE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The figure holding the skull has been identified as Mrgasirsa, who sought Buddha’s teaching on how to determine the karma and transmigration of the arhats. Mrgasirsa appears with Vasistha in some of the wall paintings of the Mogao grottoes in Dunhuang.

Object facts

• Title: Ascetic Holding a Skull
• Date: c. 500 CE
• Culture: China, Northern Wei dynasty (386-534)
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: gilt bronze
• Dimensions: Overall: 19.4 cm (7 5/8 in.); Figure: 18.1 cm (7 1/8 in.)
• Collection: China - Northern Dynasties
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1980.25

A detail from the museum

This grimacing figure has a potbelly protruding between the hem of his short jacket and fringed skirt (dhoti).

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Spendlove, F. St. George, ed. Catalogue of the International Exhibition of Chinese Art, 1935-6. London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1935.
• Sirén, Osvald. “The Sculptures in the Chinese Exhibition in London.” Parnassus 8, no. 2 (February 1936): 4–39.
• Davidson, J. Leroy. “A Problem in Skulls.” Parnassus 11, no. 1 (January 1939): 33–35.

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.