Seated Buddha (sculpture) (1100s): Art, History and Details

Seated Buddha (sculpture) (1100s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Composed of a number of hollowed-out pieces of wood that were then covered with lacquer and gilding, this sculpture served as an image of worship in one of the small temples surrounding Kōfukuji, a major Buddhist temple in Nara, Japan. Like many Buddhas, this figure has its right hand positioned in a gesture meaning "fear not." The left hand is a replacement, so its original gesture, a clue to this Buddha's identity, is unknown. However, as the left foot is exposed over the garment, in lotus position, it may have been created as a Medicine Master Buddha, Yakushi Nyorai in Japanese, or the Buddha of our era, Shakyamuni.

Object facts

• Title: Seated Buddha (sculpture)
• Date: 1100s
• Culture: Japan, Heian period (794–1185)
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: gilded wood
• Dimensions: Overall: 145.4 cm (57 1/4 in.); Figure: 88.2 cm (34 3/4 in.); Pedestal: 57.2 cm (22 1/2 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1973.85.a

A detail from the museum

This Buddha is sculpted in the Jōchō style, associated with the sculptor of the Amida at Byōdō'in in Uji.

Collection credit

Gift of Takako Setsu and her husband, Iwao, in memory of her father-in-law, Inosuke Setsu, and his long friendship with Sherman E. Lee

Further reading listed by the museum

• “The Year in Review for 1973.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 61, no. 2, 1974, pp. 31–78.
• Yamane, Yūzō 山根有三, Shūjirō Shimada 島田修二郎, and Terukazu Akiyama 秋山光和. Zaigai Nihon no shihō [在外日本の至宝 = Japanese Art: Selections froM Western Collections, vol. 8 ]. Tōkyō: Mainichi Shinbunsha, 1979.
• Zenzo Shimizu, "Japanese Sculptures in America and Canada," Bukkyō geijutsu [佛教藝術= Ars Buddhica] , no. 126 (September 1979), part I, pp. 67-88.

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.