Flying Apsaras with a Dish of Fruit

Place of OriginChina, Cisheng si Temple in Wenxian

DateNorthern Song Dynasty (960-1279), 10th century

DimensionsInside frame: 16 × 23 1/4 in. (40.6 × 59.1 cm)
Frame: 19 1/4 × 26 1/2 in. (48.9 × 67.3 cm)

MediumFresco

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LineGift of C. T. Loo

Object number

1951.366

Not on View

Label TextBuddhist and Hindu imagery from India influenced this fresco, which reportedly came from a Buddhist temple complex, Cisheng Si, in Henan Province near the border of Shanxi Province in China. An apsara (feitian in Mandarin) is a female spirit of the clouds and water, usually shown flying around a divinity. They figure in both Indian Hindu and Buddhist belief and were adopted in Chinese Buddhism when the Buddhist faith arrived in China from India along the ancient Silk Roads, probably in the 1st century CE. To create such fresco images on temple walls, first the walls were covered in mud mixed with straw. Then a layer of clay was applied, over which was added a smooth layer of lime onto which the image was painted.