In ROM, when you enter the China Gallery, you will see a 3-color sculpture of a Luohan (Arhat in Sanskrit) holding his knees. It has dignified features, plump cheeks, squinting smile, and a soft expression as if he has understood some Buddhist teachings and is content.
This statue comes from Bafowa Shanzi Cave in Yi County, Hebei Province. It was one of a group of 16 statues. This batch of 3-color Arhat statues have realistic proportions, natural body shapes, detailed clothes, and lifelike expressions. They are very rare in ancient China, because Chinese statues at that time were generally either too big or too small. What's more, this kind of one-piece porcelain statue is particularly difficult to make. They are great works of realism style and China’s national treasures.
They were created for monks to practice in seclusion. That’s why they were in a cave that was difficult to reach. But Somehow, one of the statues was seen in an antique shop in Beijing and sold. Soon a German expeditionary named Friedrich Perzynski found the origin of the Arhat statue. Unexpectedly, when he arrived at the cave, there were no other Arhats around. Even the guide who brought him there was surprised, because those statues were there just a few days ago!
It turned out that an antique dealer had already come, and after the villagers knew that these Arhats were very valuable, they smuggled the statues down the mountain overnight. Unfortunately, as it was dark and the road was difficult to walk, at least three statues got broken on the way down the mountain. But Perzynski still sold the remaining Arhat statues all over the world.
To make things worse, a cultural relics dealer named Lu Qinzhai found that the Arhats in major museums were sitting on the exhibition stands, so he made another fortune by selling the statue bases (more than 200 kilograms each).
One of the highlights of these Arhats is their facial expressions. Unfortunately, the 3-color Arhat from ROM is not complete, and the head was added later. There is also a scaled down model behind Arhat. Generally, when making sculptures, a small model will be made first, which saves time and materials, and is easy to modify. Perhaps the master who replaced the head knew that it would be impossible for today's people to restore the ancient sculptures, so he made the head a different color from the body to tell everyone that this head was not the original one.
It is said that 10 of the 16 Arhat statues are in existence, scattered in major museums and private hands. But there are still different opinions, saying that some are imitations, and some are hidden due to war. It would be great if all the Arhats could be gathered together, and we would no longer have to travel across three continents to admire those masterpieces.