Figure (Lohan). Liao Dynasty (907-1125). From Yizhou caves, Yi Xian, Hebei province. Stoneware, sancai glazed; Height: 103 cm; Weight: 106 kg (Base); Weight: kg (Figure) (Figure). Purchased from: S M Franck & Son, 1913,1221.1. © The Trustees of the British Museum

Notes: An austere youthful ‘luohan' (arhat), this ceramic sculpture belongs to the celebrated set of sixteen or eighteen once placed in caves to the west of Yixian, Hebei province. The surviving ‘lohan’ from the set are so individually modelled that they have been considered portraits of eminent monMuseumks; however, a tradition of representating ‘lohan’ with very human faces certainly existed in China since the middle Tang, as evidenced by those surrounding Śākyamuni in no. 312. The Yixian figures are striking for their sombre dignity and power, and have nothing of the elevated caricature associated with Chan ‘lohan’ painting of the Five Dynasties and Song periods. The clay images in a ‘maṇḍala’ of the Three Worlds and Ten Directions within the 11th-century library at the Huayan si, Datong, include similarly imposing ‘lohan’. (Zwalf 1985)