Cleveland Museum of Art
Seated Buddha
- Date
- 1100s
- Medium
- gilded wood
- Culture
- Japan, Heian period (794–1185)
- Department
- Japanese Art
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 147588
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
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. A 1906 photo taken at Kōfukuji shows this sculpture without a halo or left hand.
The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.
Get printable QR codesHide QR codes
Open QR codes for this object page and the museum record. They stay collapsed until needed.
Provenance & credit
As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.
- Credit line
- 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
- Provenance
- ?–1973: Setsu Takako 瀬津 孝子, Tokyo, Japan, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art | 1973–: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Related across collections
Semantically similar works from Cleveland Museum of Art and other institutions.