Seated Zenki and Koki (1400s): Art, History and Details

Seated Zenki and Koki (1400s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The axe-wielding red Zenki, and the vase-porting, bamboo backpack-wearing green Koki are both under the mystical control of the monk, En no Ozunu (legendarily 634–701), also known as En no Gyōja, or “En the Ascetic,” and considered to have founded Shugendō, a style of religious practice focused on performing austerities in mountainous settings.

Object facts

• Title: Seated Zenki and Koki
• Date: 1400s
• Culture: Japan, Muromachi period (1392–1573)
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: wood with pigment
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 2012.40

A detail from the museum

A popular Japanese comic named Zenki was inspired by the figure seen here wielding a weapon.

Collection credit

Sundry Art - Japanese/Korean and Lillian Kern Memorial Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• “Art of Asia Acquired by North American Museums, 2011-2012.” Archives of Asian Art, vol. 63, no. 2, 2013, pp. 215–276.
• Vilbar, Sinéad, and Kevin Gray Carr. Shinto: Discovery of the Divine in Japanese Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2019.

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.