Cleveland Museum of Art
Monster Caryatid
- Date
- late 500s
- Medium
- Limestone
- Culture
- China, possibly from Xiangtangshan, Northern Qi dynasty (550–577)
- Department
- Chinese Art
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 134788
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
This squatting monster with claws on its knees, braces its shoulders against an overhanging molding. The half-human, half-animal creature was likely part of a Buddhist cave-temple complex at Xiangtangshan, in Hebei Province, northwest China. Found in the lower registers of stone monuments of either architectural structures or statues of Buddhist deities, such monsters had a supportive function. Their scary appearance was believed to keep evil spirits away from the sacred sites. The complex of Buddhist cave temples at Xiangtangshan, “Mountain of Echoing Halls,” is a central achievement of the Northern Qi period.
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Provenance & credit
As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.
- Credit line
- Anonymous Gift
- Provenance
- ?–1957: (Frank Caro [1904–1980], New York, NY, to the Cleveland Museum of Art, purchased with funds from an anonymous donor) | 1957–: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
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