Arhats (Japanese: rakan) are disciples of the Buddha who have achieved enlightenment, serving as role models for Zen monks. They are often portrayed with highly individualized facial expressions, suggestive of an extreme ascetic lifestyle. This statue is one of five hundred created over nearly ten years by the monk-sculptor Shōun Genkei for the Ōbaku temple Gohyaku Rakanji, originally on the eastern outskirts of Edo (present-day Tokyo).
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Artwork Details
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松雲元慶作 羅漢像
Title:Seated Arhat
Artist:Shōun Genkei (Japanese, 1648–1710)
Period:Edo period (1615–1868)
Date:1688–95
Culture:Japan
Medium:One of a set of five hundred; wood with lacquer, color, and gold leaf
Dimensions:H. 33 1/2 in. (85.1 cm); W. 28 3/4 in. (73 cm); D. 26 1/4 in. (66.7 cm)
Classification:Sculpture
Credit Line:Fletcher Fund, 1927
Object Number:27.69
[ Yamanaka & Co. , Kyoto and New York, until 1927; sold to MMA]
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "No Ordinary Mortals: The Human and Not-So-Human Figure in Japanese Art," November 1, 1996–October 5, 1997.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Mighty Kano School: Orthodoxy and Iconoclasm," December 18, 2004–June 5, 2005.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Masterpieces from the Permanent Collection," July 2–November 29, 2005.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "No Ordinary Mortals: The Human Figure in Japanese Art," 2007–2008.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Ukiyo-e Artists' Responses to Romantic Legends of Two Brothers: Narihira and Yukihira," March 27–June 8, 2008.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Animals, Birds, Insects, and Marine Life in Japanese Art," June 26–November 30, 2008.
San Antonio Museum of Art. "Heaven and Hell: Salvation and Retribution in Pure Land Buddhism," June 16, 2017–September 10, 2017.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Three Perfections: Japanese Poetry, Calligraphy, and Painting from the Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection," August 10, 2024–August 3, 2025.
Tokyo Kokuritsu Bunkazai Kenkyūjo 東京国立文化財研究所, ed. Nyūyōku Metoroporitan Bijutsukan, kaiga, chōkoku ニューヨークメトロポリタン美術館，絵画・彫刻 (Painting and sculpture of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) Kaigai shozai Nihon bijutsuhin chōsa hōkoku 海外所在日本美術品調查報告 (Catalogue of Japanese art in foreign collections) 1. Tokyo: Kobunkazai Kagaku Kenkyūkai, 1991, p. 144, cat. no. 449.
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The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world.
