Last weekend, I had the pleasure of attending a very interesting set of talks at the Royal Ontario Museum, “From China to Canada: Untold Stories of the Chinese Art Collection at ROM.” From the ROM website:

It was hoping that one of my favourite objects at the ROM would be featured and it was! I’ve long admired the 11th century (Liao dynasty, 916-1125) glazed earthenware figure of a  Luohan, which the object’s label says is “a holy monk striving to obtain Buddhahood through meditation.”

The ROM’s catalogue says the sculpture is reportedly from Yixian, Hebei province, China:

A Luohan (Arhat in Sanskrit) is a holy monk striving to attain Buddhahood through meditation. In Chinese temples, Luohans are usually found in groups of 16 or 18. This particular clay sculpture comes from a famous group discovered in a cave near Yixian in 1912. At least seven of this group are now kept in various museums in Europe and North America.

Wikipedia’s entry on the Yixian glazed pottery luohans indicates that others of the group are at the British Museum in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and elsewhere, and that “The luohan at the Royal Ontario Museum, in the Bishop White Gallery of Chinese Temple Art, was one of the first pieces to be included in the museum’s Chinese art collection,” with reference to Philip Cheong’s article “Reflections on the Luohan” in the Friends of the Far East: Newsletter for the Bishop White Committee, Autumn 2007 (which I’ll try to find!).

The ROM talks discussed the origin of ROM’s luohan, I believe in reference to George Crofts, Chinese artifacts broker, as supported by the image available on the ROM’s website from the 2014-15 exhibit Collecting Asia: The First 50 Years, 1908-1958. I’m interested to look into this further. (Note to self: look at The Museum Makers: The Story of the Royal Ontario Museum by Lovat Dickson.)

A fun thing I learned is that in 2014, to mark the ROM’s centennial, Canada Post issued two postage stamps featuring ROM collections, one including the luohan! See Canada Post’s Details Magazine for image and details.

In the mid-1990s, when I was a volunteer at the ROM’s Reproduction Shop, I acquired a fridge magnet of the Luohan which I had for many years. I kick myself for misplacing it during several moves, sigh! Luckily, this very special figure is still on display to visit anytime.