Kneeling Winged Monster (550–77): Art, History and Details

Kneeling Winged Monster (550–77) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This kneeling monster from the cave-temple complex at Xiangtangshan was originally placed below some wall niches on the perimeter. With its grotesque face and body, it is among the most imaginative sculptures of the period.

Object facts

• Title: Kneeling Winged Monster
• Date: 550–77
• Culture: China, Hebei province, northern Xiangtangshan caves, North cave, Northern Qi dynasty (550-577)
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: limestone
• Dimensions: Overall: 75 x 63.6 cm (29 1/2 x 25 1/16 in.)
• Collection: China - Southern Dynasties
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1957.360

A detail from the museum

The hunched monster has three-fingered hands, four square teeth in center of its mouth, and two pairs of pointed teeth on either side.

Collection credit

The Fanny Tewksbury King Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Mizuno, Seiichi 水野清一 and Toshio Nagahiro 長廣敏雄. The Buddhist Cave-Temples of Hsiang-T'ang-Ssu on the Frontier of Honan and Hopei. Kyoto: Academy of Oriental Culture, Kyoto Institute, 1937.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• Milliken, William M. “Early Byzantine Silver.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 45, no. 3, 1958, pp. 35–94.

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.