Attendant Bodhisattva in the Princeton University Art Museum, September 2012

Northern Song dynasty, 960–1127

Chinese

Anonymous


Attendant Bodhisattvas, Undated; mid 10th century

Temple wall painting; ink and color on plaster

Painting: 179.0 x 80.0 cm. (70 1/2 x 31 1/2 in.) Overall: 180.0 x 81.0 x 4.0 cm. (70 7/8 x 31 7/8 x 1 9/16 in.)

Museum purchase, Carl Otto von Kienbusch Jr., Memorial Collection

y1952-41


Signatures and Inscriptions

Unsigned; undated

Gallery Label:

Attendant Bodhisattvas is one of the earliest surviving temple wall paintings from China, and, despite heavy damage and restoration, it provides important information about the process by which early religious paintings were made. Such murals were painted on the walls of a temple. First, a thick layer of mud, reinforced by straw, was applied over a masonry backing. A thin layer of fine clay mixed with vegetable fibers was added, followed by a smooth topcoat of lime. The designs were then brushed in ink lines and filled with color.
In this wall painting fragment, a standing bodhisattva offers a jeweled mountain, or piece of coral, on a plate. In the full composition, this figure and the seated bodhisattva in the foreground likely would have flanked a central Buddhist icon. Another fragment, with the opposing pair of figures, is now in the collection of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington, D.C. The two fragments are believed to come from Cisheng Temple (built about 952) in Wenxian county, Henan province, eastern China.

Text from: artmuseum.princeton.edu/collections/objects/24192