Standing Bodhisattva (1500s): Art, History and Details

Standing Bodhisattva (1500s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This work demonstrates the enduring presence of Buddhism and its religious practice during the Joseon dynasty (1392–1910) even after Neo-Confucianism, a revised form of Confucianism that emphasized self-cultivation as a path to the formation of a harmonious society and state, became the state religion. Because of its missing crown, it is hard to identify what Buddhist deity this statue represents. But there is no doubt it still can be attributed to a bodhisattva (meaning “enlightened being”) for its iconographic attributes: elaborate jewelry and a lock of long hair.

Object facts

• Title: Standing Bodhisattva
• Date: 1500s
• Culture: Korea, Joseon dynasty (1392–1910)
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: wood with lacquer and gold, and metal earrings
• Dimensions: Overall: 48.6 x 15.6 x 18.2 cm (19 1/8 x 6 1/8 x 7 3/16 in.)
• Collection: Korean Art
• Department: Korean Art
• Accession number: 1997.11

A detail from the museum

This Buddhist statue is missing its crown, which makes it hard to identify what deity it represents.

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cleveland Museum of Art, “Major Neoclassical Marble, Rare Korean Sculpture, Other Recent CMA Acquisitions Now on View,” April 16, 1997, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.
• Cunningham, Michael R., "Land of Morning Calm", Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 37 no. 07, September 1997
• Treasures from Korea: Arts and Culture of the Joseon Dynasty, 1392-1910. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2014.

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.