The Immortal Li Tieguai (1500s): Art, History and Details

The Immortal Li Tieguai (1500s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Su Wennan (Chinese).

The work and its context

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

This bronze statue of Li Tieguai shows him dressed as a beggar in a tattered robe, holding a crutch in his right and a ball of medicine in his left hand. Li Tieguai is the patron saint for physicians and legend says that he dispenses pills from the gourd for the sick. He wears a belt of leaves and another gourd hangs from his waist. His head is crowned with what appears to be a metal ring, signifying his immortal status. Four incised characters in seal script on the back of the figure reads “made by Su Wennan (蘇文南製).”

Object facts

• Title: The Immortal Li Tieguai
• Date: 1500s
• Creator attribution: Su Wennan (Chinese)
• Culture: China, Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: bronze
• Dimensions: Overall: 41.8 cm (16 7/16 in.)
• Collection: China - Ming Dynasty
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1973.158

Collection credit

Cornelia Blakemore Warner Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• "The Year in Review for 1973." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 61, no. 2 (1974): 31-78.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.
• Arts of China: From the Cleveland Museum of Art. Mansfield, OH: Mansfield Art Center, 1983.

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.