Explore key developments in the history and culture of China, from the arts and crafts of the Song Dynasty up to the present day.
This elaborately-robed bodhisattva is an image of Guanyin, or Avalokiteshvara, who became widely worshipped as a goddess of compassion. This figure is from northern Shaanxi province, possibly the Wutai mountains, an ancient holy site of Buddhist pilgrimage. The picture shows the Wutai mountains as painted in AD 961 in a Buddhist cave temple over 1,000 miles away on the Silk Road.
Barnes, Ruth, Emma Dick, and Jon Thompson, Textiles Through the Ages (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2002), cat. p. 8, illus. p. 8
Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 24 May 2006-23 December 2008, Treasures: Antiquities, Eastern Art, Coins, and Casts: Exhibition Guide, Rune Frederiksen, ed. (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2006), no. 152 on p. 55, illus. p. 55
Vainker, Shelagh, Chinese Silk. A Cultural History (London: The British Museum Press, 2004), p. 123, figs 80-81 on pp 121-123
Christopher Brown, ‘The Burlington Magazine, Acquisitions (1998-2014) at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford’, 1139, (2014)
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Objects may have since been removed or replaced from a gallery. Click into an individual object record to confirm whether or not an object is currently on display. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis, so contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular Eastern Art object.
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