Cleveland Museum of Art

Stand-in Fugen

Kitao MasayoshiLinkedCulture matchlcp-d49d3830049b

Date: late 1700s–early 1800s
Medium: hanging scroll; ink and color on silk
Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
Department: Japanese Art
Institution: Cleveland Museum of Art
Object ID: 152450

What the image shows

A figure in traditional attire rides an elephant, holding a fan.

Generated by LinkedCulture from the photograph alone, without the museum’s catalogue text (Qwen/Qwen2.5-VL-7B-Instruct), and not yet reviewed by a person. It describes the picture, not the object’s history, and it is not part of the museum’s record.

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

Here, a woman dressed as a man replaces Fugen, a bodhisattva—a being among those considered enlightened in Buddhism—who symbolizes learning as a path to awakening and typically rides an elephant. The painting teaches the lesson of impermanence through the petals falling from the lotus flower the woman holds. It also alludes to the legend of Eguchi, a 12th-century courtesan who, following an encounter with a Buddhist monk-poet called Saigyō, revealed herself to be a manifestation of Fugen.

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Provenance & credit

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Credit line: The Kelvin Smith Collection, given by Mrs. Kelvin Smith
Provenance: (Nathan Chaikin, Switzerland, sold to Mr. and Mrs. Kelvin Smith) | ?–1985: The Kelvin Smith Collection, Cleveland, OH, given by Mrs. Kelvin [Eleanor Armstrong] Smith [1899–1998] to the Cleveland Museum of Art | 1985–: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

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