A Shinto deity (kami) appears as a lady of the Chinese court, her formal, long-sleeved garment resembling the robes worn by female Buddhist deities in images of the heavenly realm. Only with the importation of Buddhism to Japan in the sixth century did sculptors begin to represent kami in human form—often in the secular garb of the Kyoto court or in Chinese aristocratic dress, as in this example.
Scientific examination of this statue reveals that it was carved from the wood of a magnolia tree, felled at over 180 years old. The figure’s tall, attenuated, and strikingly abstract form recalls the vertical nature of the mature tree from which it was fashioned.
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女神立像
Title:Female Shinto Deity
Period:Heian period (794–1185)
Date:ca. mid-11th–mid-12th century
Culture:Japan
Medium:Japanese bigleaf magnolia with traces of color
Dimensions:H. 38 1/2 in. (97.8 cm); W. 9 3/4 in. (24.8 cm); D. 5 in. (12.7 cm)
Classification:Sculpture
Credit Line:Purchase, The Vincent Astor Foundation Gift, 2023
Object Number:2023.641
A female Shinto deity (kami) appears as a Chinese aristocratic lady dressed in a long-sleeved formal garment that also recalls robes worn by female Buddhist deities in images of the heavenly realm. Her hands are joined together under long sleeves, and her hair is parted in the middle, with a double topknot.
Only with the importation of Buddhism in the sixth century did sculptors begin to represent kami in human form, often in the secular garb of the Kyoto court, or in Chinese courtly dress, as in this example. Unlike most Buddhist icons, Shinto sculptures (shinzō) are typically not meant to be seen and are kept behind closed doors. Unusually, this statue appears to be part of a set of at least twenty-one wood figures, at least five of which remain in Japan, and the others entered Western collections in the mid-twentieth century: at least thirteen in American museum and private collections; one in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto; one in the Sainsbury Collection, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK, and one in the Baur Foundation, Museum of Far Eastern Art, Geneva. In recent years, research conducted by shinzō researcher Itō Shiro and others hypothesize that, during the medieval period, these works might have been displayed collectively at a temple-shrine complex in Izumo and, at some point in their history, used for the worship of Prince Shōtoku (Shōtoku Taishi), an advocate for adopting Buddhism as the official state religion in the early seventh century.
As part of a recent collaborative research project on the shinzō undertaken by Itō with Mechtild Mertz and Suyako Tazuru, specialists in the scientific analysis of wooden art objects, wood samples were taken of twelve of the statues and all proved to be rare wood choices.[1] Instead of cypress, the principal material for religious icons in Japan, at least thirteen—including The Met’s statue—are magnolia; the other two are carved from wood of the Fagaceae family (e.g., beeches, chestnuts, and oaks; possibly Castanea crenata or Castanopsis sieboldii) and a species of prunus.
Several have been radiocarbon dated to the Heian period, between the tenth and twelfth centuries (though different methodologies used by different laboratories for calculating dates means that slight differences occur even though we can be sure all of the magnolia-wood sculptures came from the same tree).The Carbon-14 dating analysis conducted by Tazuru found that this sculpture dates from between the mid-11th to mid-12th century (according to AMS Carbon-14 dating, 1039–1162 cal AD [95.45%] with 2σ calibrated date).
Carved from a single block of magnolia wood, the underside of The Met’s statue shows that it must have come from a quarter of a log of about 45 cm diameter and one meter high. Through subsequent study of high-resolution photographic imagery of the base, we know that the magnolia tree from which all the related works were carved was over 180 years old when it was cut up to make the statues. So we can imagine what a grand and impressive tree it must have been, and can assume that it was a tree worshipped as having a kami presence. In this case the distinctive tall, attenuated and strikingly abstract forms of the standing figures in this group recall the vertical nature the original tree from which it was fashioned.
—John T. Carpenter, updated Sept. 12, 2024 1. Mechtild Mertz, Suyako Tazuru, Shiro Ito and Cynthea J. Bogel, “A Group of Twelfth-Century Japanese Kami Statues and Considerations of Material Intentionality: Collaborative Research Among Wood Scientists and Art Historians,” Journal of Asian Humanities at Kyushu University (JAH-Q), vol. 7 (Spring, 2022). This statue is included as fig. 19.
Mr. Shoichi Fujiki, Osaka, until 1943; sold to Mr. Ryuzaburo Umehara. Ryuzaburo until 1964; sold through Kochukyo Co. Ltd, Tokyo (Dealer) May 21,1964 to Tart Limited Partnership
Fujiki Shōichi , Osaka (before 1943); Umehara Ryūzaburō Japanese, Kyoto and Tokyo, Japan (1943–1964; sold through Kochukyo Co. Ltd, Tokyo (dealer) to Samuel Josefowitz on May 21,1964; Samuel Josefowitz , Lausanne, Switzerland (by descent in the Josefowitz family, 1962–2023); [ Christie's, London , Masterpieces from the Collection of Sam Josefowitz: A Lifetime of Discovery and Scholarship, October 13, 2023, lot 17, as "A wood sculpture of a standing female Shinto deity"; to MMA)
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Arts of Japan Galleries," February 2–July 28, 2013.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Arts of Japan," August 17, 2013–January 12, 2014.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Poetry of Nature: Edo Paintings from the Fishbein-Bender Collection," February 27, 2018–January 21, 2019.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Kyoto: Capital of Artistic Imagination," July 24, 2019–January 31, 2021.
Hugo Munsterberg. Mingei: Folk Arts of Old Japan. New York: Asia Society, 1965, p. 61, fig. 50.
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