The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of October 4, 2023

The Eight Hosts of Deva, Naga, and Yakshi

天龍八部羅叉女衆

1454

Part of a set. See all set records

China, Ming dynasty

(1368–1644)

Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk

Painting: 140.2 x 78.8 cm (55 3/16 x 31 in.); Overall with knobs: 226.5 x 120 cm (89 3/16 x 47 1/4 in.)

John L. Severance Fund 1973.70.2

Location

not on view

Fun Fact

The Naga is on the lower right dressed as a king with gold dragons on his blue robe.

Description

The grandest of the Buddhist mortuary rites is the Water-Land (shuilu) ritual. This esoteric ceremony is conducted for the salvation of “all souls of the dead on land and sea.” The ostentatious ritual was performed for imperial ancestors and high officials from the Song (960–1279) to the Ming dynasties and drew large crowds. On the second day of the weeklong ceremony, paintings are hung in the inner altar.

This scroll represents the Eight Hosts of Celestial Nagas and Yakshis as described in the Lotus Sutra. Together with the scroll nearby, it belongs to a set of 36 Water-Land ritual paintings that are the finest works of their types known from the Ming period. With their bright, opaque color and fine-line gilt decoration intact and unfaded, both paintings share a remarkable state of preservation.

Inscriptions

Inscription

大明景泰五年八月初三日施 [印] 廣運之寳

Inscription Translation

Upper right corner: Offered on the third day of the eighth month, the fifth year of Jingtai (1454) of the Great Ming Dynasty. [seal] Guang yun zhi bao (The Treasure of Grand Destiny).

Inscription

御用監太監尚義王勤等奉命提督監造

Inscription Translation

Lower left corner: Under the Imperial Command, Shang Yi and Wang Qin, Senior Eunuchs in the Directorate Accouterments, supervised the production.

Inscription

天龍八部羅叉女衆

Inscription Translation

Right edge: The Eight Hosts of Deva, Naga, and Yakshi

Provenance
1450–1456
Ming imperial collection [Jingtai era, 1450–1456]
?-1973
(Shunichi Yabumoto Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
1973-
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Citations
“The Year in Review for 1973.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 61, no. 2, 1974, pp. 31–79. Mentioned: no. 200, p. 79; Reproduced; p. 67 www.jstor.org
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 348 archive.org
Ho, Wai-kam, Sherman E. Lee, Laurence Sickman, and Marc F. Wilson. Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting: The Collections of the Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1980. Reproduced: pp. 153-154; cat. no. 131b
Suzuki, Kei 鈴木敬. Chugoku kaiga shi [中國繪畫史 = A History of Chinese Painting]. Tōkyō: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 1981. Reproduced: p. 4, no. 5b
Suzuki, Kei 鈴木敬. Chūgoku kaiga sōgō zuroku [中國繪畫總合圖錄 = Comprehensive Illustrated Catalog of Chinese Paintings], 第 1卷. アメリカ·カナダ篇 [= vol. 1 American and Canadian collections]. Tōkyō: Tōkyō Daigaku Shuppankai, 1982. Reproduced: no. A22-012, p. 1-260
Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1991. Reproduced: p. 61
Barnhart, Richard M., Mary Ann Rogers, and Richard Stanley-Baker. Painters of the Great Ming: The Imperial Court and the Zhe School. Dallas, TX: Dallas Museum of Art, 1993.
Tōkyō Daigaku 東京大学. Kaigai shozai Chūgoku kaiga mokuroku [海外所在中国絵画目錄. アメリカカナダ編 = Catalogue of Chinese paintings in foreign collections: America and Canada]. Tōkyō: Tōkyō Daigaku Tōyō Bunka Kenkyūjo Fuzoku Tōyōgaku Bunken Sentā, 1994. p. 63
Weidner, Marsha Smith, and Patricia Ann Berger. Latter Days of the Law: Images of Chinese Buddhism, 850-1850. Lawrence, KS: Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, 1994. Reproduced: cat. no. 25, p. 284
Weidner, Marsha, "Two Ming Ritual Scrolls as Harbingers of New Directions in the Study of Chinese Painting," Orientations (Jan/Feb. 2005), vol. 36, no. 1, p. 64 Reproduced: p. 64
Wang, Chiang-Ling. "Weiderentdeckte Schatze: Drei Chinesische Thangkas im Ethnologischen Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin." Baessler-Archiv 62: 117-136. Reproduced: p. 129, fig. 15
Chou, Ju-hsi and Anita Chung. Silent poetry: Chinese paintings from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2015. Reproduced: pp. 211-217
Kungnip Chungang Pangmulgwan (Korea). Chosŏn ŭi sŭngnyŏ changin = Monk artisans of the Joseon dynasty: buddhist sculptures and paintings. 서울: 국립 중앙 박물관, 2021. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 70-73
Exhibition history

Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (November 7, 1980-January 4, 1981); The Cleveland Museum of Art (February 11-March 29, 1981); Tokyo National Museum (October 4-November 17, 1982); The Asia Society Museum, New York, NY (December 3, 1982-February 28, 1983).

Latter Days of the Law: Images of Chinese Buddhism 850-1850. Spencer Museum of Art (August 9-October 31, 1994); Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (November 30, 1994-January 29, 1995).

Taming Tigers and Releasing Dragons: Masterpieces of Chinese Buddhist Art – Chinese Gallery Rotation 240a, 241c. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (February 8-August 11, 2019).

Monk Artisans of the Joseon Dynasty. National Museum of Korea, Seoul, Korea (Republic of) (organizer) (December 6, 2021-March 6, 2022).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1973.70.2