Cleveland Museum of Art
Album of Daoist and Buddhist Themes: Kings of Hells: Leaf 29
- Date
- 1200s
- Medium
- Album, ink on paper
- Culture
- China, Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279)
- Department
- Chinese Art
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 163127
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
This leaf belongs to the album’s second series of narratives, Ten Kings of Hells . It demonstrates a Chinese-Buddhist approach in which the netherworld is divided into ten realms, each ruled by one of these kings. This particular version portrays the king in a benevolent guise, though his identity remains unclear. He is draped in a robe and holds an ivory plaque. A vertical scroll hangs to his left, depicting in the lower two-thirds a rectangular architectural plan with buildings aligned in a symmetrical arrangement not unlike a Buddhist temple or a Confucian shrine. Above, the scene also features a building and could show a specific mountain. One of the Ten Kings is known as the King of Taishan (or Mt. Tai). This depiction would represent a unique treatment of the king, not shared with other renditions of the same figure elsewhere. This King of Hell wears a hat with two slender side arms—similar to the headgear worn by Song dynasty emperors.
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Provenance & credit
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- Credit line
- John L. Severance Fund in honor of Dr. Ju-hsi Chou and Gift of various donors to the department of Asian Art (by exchange)
- Provenance
- Wang Hui 王翬 [1632–1717] | Li Jiale 李嘉樂 [jinshi of 1863] | Zhu Hang 朱沆 [active 19th century] | 1910–?: Dr. F. R. (Fredrik Robert) Martin [1868–1933], Stockholm, Sweden, and Munich, Germany | ?–1947: Mrs. L. M. Morris [20th century], England | March 25, 1947: (Sotheby's, London, sale, 25 March 1947, lot 118, sold to Stephen Junkunc III) | 1947–78: István “Stephen" Junkunc III [1904–1978], by descent to his son Stephen Junkunc IV | 1978–2004: (Stephen Junkunc IV [b. 1937], Miami, FL, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) | 2004–: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
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