Sarcophagus Panel (early 700s): Art, History and Details

Sarcophagus Panel (early 700s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This slab originally formed the "window" panel of a coffin encasement constructed to resemble a one-story house. The dwarfs bowing respectfully under the vertical lattice window, as well as the court lady and archer engraved on the reverse, reflect the style of contemporary figure painting. Complete structures with similar décor have been excavated from tombs in the Tang imperial cemetery near Xian in northwest China.

Object facts

• Title: Sarcophagus Panel
• Date: early 700s
• Culture: China, Tang dynasty (618-907)
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: limestone
• Dimensions: Overall: 119 x 69 x 10 cm (46 7/8 x 27 3/16 x 3 15/16 in.)
• Collection: China - Tang Dynasty
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1975.63

A detail from the museum

The two sides of the stone were engraved during the Tang dynasty, but the court lady and archer were likely carved 50 years later.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Sasakawa, Akio 笹川昭雄, ed. Sasakawa Shin'ichi Korekushon 笹川慎一コレクション.. Osaka: [publisher not identified], 1939.
• Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1975.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 63, no. 2 (February 1976): 31–71.
• Hartman, Joan M. "Report from America,' Oriental Art, n.s. XXII (Autumn, 1976), 308, fig. 4 and (Winter 1976), 422, fig. 3

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.