CENTER FOR THE ART OF EAST ASIA
DIGITAL COLLECTIONS

Yixian Arhat

This project focuses on a set of sixteen over-life-sized ceramic sculptures of arhats (or Luohan) made during the Liao dynasty (907-1125). They are considered by many to be the most outstanding examples of ceramic sculptures in the world and are part of a set of seated arhats, or “spiritually perfected ones.” The former site of these sculptures has not been located, though they are attributed to a cave in the general environs of Buddhist caves at today’s Yixian, Hebei. Today, the set of sculptures is separated in various museums and private collections around the world, and only ten of the original statues can be safely identified. These extant ceramic sculptures are in eight museums on three continents, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Nelson-Atkins Museum, Penn Museum, Royal Ontario Museum, British Museum, Musée Guimet in Paris, and Matsukata Collection in Japan.
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5 stoneware

5 Liao

5 sculpture

5 arhats
Arhat (Luohan)
  • Title Translation: 罗汉
  • Period: Liao, 907-1125 C.E.
  • Project: Yixian Arhat
  • Work Description: This life-size sculpture is part of a group of sixteen figures that have been known in the West since 1913. Thought to have come from a cave in Yixian, Hebei province, they represent arhats (or luohans, as they are known in China). Arhats were thought to have achieved an advanced state of spiritual development, and were revered as protectors of Buddhism. Regarded as masterpieces of ceramic sculpture, for their size, naturalistic modeling, and the quality of their three-toned (sancai) glaze, they can be dated securely to the late tenth or eleventh century based on material discovered in 1983 at an ancient kiln site near Beijing.

Arhat (Luohan)
  • Title Translation: 罗汉
  • Period: Liao, 907-1125 C.E.
  • Project: Yixian Arhat
  • Work Description: A seated pottery Lohan decorated with three color glaze, green, yellow and light tan. Shown seated in meditation, with palms open on lap.

Arhat (Luohan)
  • Title Translation: 罗汉
  • Period: Liao, 907-1125 C.E.
  • Project: Yixian Arhat
  • Work Description: Enamelled 'sancai'. In fact of 'sancai,' the polychromy is only that of a brown and a green; the disciple sits in meditation on a rocky base. Perfect hieraticism of the pose and symmetry of the hands placed on the legs, holding a rosary. Expression of intense concentration on the face, slightly lowered gaze. The kashaya covers both shoulders

Arhat (Luohan)
  • Title Translation: 罗汉
  • Period: Liao, 907-1125 C.E.
  • Project: Yixian Arhat
  • Work Description: Life-size, seated figure of a 'luohan' (arhat), with hands on lap, on a plinth with perforated front, the robes green and brown with stripes bordered blue. Made of lead-glazed stoneware.

Arhat (Luohan)
  • Title Translation: 罗汉
  • Period: Liao, 907-1125 C.E.
  • Project: Yixian Arhat
  • Work Description: This life-size sculpture is part of a group of sixteen figures that have been known in the West since 1913. Thought to have come from a cave in Yixian, Hebei province, they represent arhats (or luohans, as they are known in China). Arhats were thought to have achieved an advanced state of spiritual development, and were revered as protectors of Buddhism. Regarded as masterpieces of ceramic sculpture, for their size, naturalistic modeling, and the quality of their three-toned (sancai) glaze, they can be dated securely to the late tenth or eleventh century based on material discovered in 1983 at an ancient kiln site near Beijing.