The Companion Statues on display at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) flank a three-metre tall Buddha located in the Southeast Asia Gallery on the first floor at the very back in the centre of the gallery. The younger Luohan has been at the museum since 1922 and the older was purchased in 1990. Curators have concluded that the two Luohans are an original pair.
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The Aged Luohan (Kashyapa)
The older Luohan is known as Kashyapa, Kassapa or Kasyapa. The piece was acquired in October 1993 from the Christie’s Hong Kong Chinese works of art sale. The statue was noticed only three days before the auction, and permission to bid for the Luohan was obtained by a unanimous agreement by the department. The purchase was possible because of the Levy Bequest of 1990.
The Luohan is life-sized and made of marble, sculpted during a time when authentic statues of that size and material were very rare, making it a unique find. It bears a clear resemblance to the younger luohan in size, dress, and medium. The sculpture is thinner than the younger one, his rib cage being clearly visible beneath his robes. The statue was purchased in good condition, and only the hands needed to be restored.
The Younger Luohan (Anada)
The younger Luohan is known as Ananda. The statue was acquired in 1922 for $750 Canadian dollars. It was paid to the Chinese in Mexican silver, due to the lack of trust the Chinese had for paper money. The statue originates from a temple at Yang Ku Hsien (Yangqu Xian, near Taiyuan). This statue has appeared at Expo 67 in Montreal and the Nara National Museum exhibition “Sources of Japanese Buddhist Art” in 1978 before coming to its permanent home at the museum. It is regarded as the ROM’s finest Chinese Buddhist sculptures.
The sculpture is from the Tang Dynasty Period (618-906). It is unclear if the head was broken off at the neck at some point and replaced, or if it was originally carved separately. It has been suggested that three neck folds give evidence of the head being broken and rejoined in china and reset in the correct place and angle. The Luohan is portrayed as fleshy, short-waisted and slightly androgynous with a developing “dowager’s hump”. The upper ears have been broken and replaced with now-discolored materials. The statue rests on an oval socle carved with lotus petals, and is one with the socle. There is eveidence that the socle was broken off from a lower base at one time and reattached with cement to a different base of an inverted lotus atop a square plinth. There are traces of light green pigment in crevices under the robe and skirt, consistent with Tang and Tang-style paintings. In a photo from the 1920s, the robe still has large patches of what is most likely the original surface. They show designs of lotus, chrysantemums and a vine pattern. Unfortunately, poor cleaning has left few traces of the original pattern.