Repository for the Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra (late 1100s): Art, History and Details

Repository for the Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra (late 1100s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This repository is one of a pair that once contained the scrolls of a religious text called the Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra. Two discs painted on the back have the sacred syllables representing the Buddha Shakyamuni and the Buddha Amida. Eight of the 16 benevolent but fierce looking deities who protect the text appear on the doors.

Object facts

• Title: Repository for the Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra
• Date: late 1100s
• Culture: Japan, Heian period (794–1185)
• Type: Lacquer
• Technique: lacquered wood with ink, color, gold, cut gold, and metalwork
• Dimensions: height: 160 cm (63 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1969.130.1

A detail from the museum

The mate to this object is in the Nara National Museum in Japan.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1969.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 57, no. 1, 1970, pp. 2–50.
• “Art of Asia Recently Acquired by American Museums, 1969.” Archives of Asian Art, vol. 24, 1970, pp. 86–117.
• "New Oriental art galleries at Cleveland." Apollo: A Journal of the Arts. August 1970, Vol. 92, pp. 148-151.

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.