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Flying Apsaras with a Dish of Fruit

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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
Collections
  • Paintings
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.
Flying Apsaras with a Dish of Flowers
Northern Song Dynasty (960-1279), 10th century
Northern Song Dynasty (960-1279), 952
Saint John
about 1250-1275
Saints James and Philip
Master of the Last Judgment
about 1125
Basket of Fruit
Pierre Boucle
1649
Still Life with Fruit
Samuel John Peploe
1928
Flowers and Fruit
Henri Fantin-Latour
1866
Fruit, Flowers, and Shells
Balthasar van der Ast
about 1620 - 29
The Flying Horses
Maurice Brazil Prendergast
about 1902-1906

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