Manjusri as a Child Expansion

Manjusri as a Child 

稚児文殊

Artist
SHIMOMURA, Kanzan
下村 観山
Birth Year
1873
Death Year
1930
Date
ca. 1923 
Technique, Material, Format
color on silk, hanging scroll 
Dimension
156.5 x 70.0 cm 
Category
Nihonga (Japanese-style Painting) 
Inventory Number
91-JP-006 

The bodhisattva Manjusri, who symbolizes wisdom, is generally depicted sitting on the back of a lion and holding a sword in his right hand. When he is depicted as a child he is known in Japanese as Chigomonju (Manjusri as a child). In this painting, he is shown wearing a Heian Period (794–1185) costume called a suikan.
The Yokohama-based silk trader and prominent art collector Hara Tomitaro (Sankei) was a patron of Shimomura Kanzan and provided him with a residence in the Honmoku Wadayama district. Sankei’s art collection at the time included a depiction of Manjusri as a child that was thought to have been made by Fujiwara Nobuzane during the Kamakura Period (1185–1333). It is easy to imagine that Sankei might have shown Nobuzane’s painting to Kanzan when he was making this work. Judging from the style of the signature and the inclusion of a stamp saying “Imperial Artist Kanzan,” this work is thought to have been completed around 1923.
(KASHIWAGI Tomoh)

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