The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 18, 2025

Vertically long hanging scroll depicting celestial beings descending on light brown clouds against a dark brown sky, a full moon in the upper left. In the upper half the human-like beings extend diagonally down left to right, wearing layered robes with gold patterns, some beings half the the size of others. Arcing left to right in the lower half, the beings also have halos, three of them with red skin and wraps around their waists in contrast with the other beings with light skin tones and wearing robes.

Descent of the Nine Luminaries and the Seven Stars at Kasuga

mid- to late 1300s

Japan, Nanbokuchō period

(1336–92)
Hanging scroll; ink, color, gold and cut gold on silk
Mounted: 184.5 x 58.5 cm (72 5/8 x 23 1/16 in.); Painting only: 106 x 42 cm (41 3/4 x 16 9/16 in.); with knobs: 184.5 x 63.5 cm (72 5/8 x 25 in.)
Lillian M. Kern Memorial Fund 2015.63
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

A 19th-century copy of this painting in ink and light color exists at the Kyoto City University of Arts.

Description

This medieval religious painting shows celestial beings descending from the heavens into the Kasuga Shrine, a major religious site in Japan's ancient capital, Nara. The moon and the Kasuga mountain range appear in the uppermost portion of the painting, as does a red shrine entrance gate, or torii. In the upper part of the painting, figural representations of the stars in the constellation known as the Big Dipper in the West descend from right to left on cloud banks. In the lower part, the Nine Luminaries (Sanskrit: Navagraha) that emerged from the Vedic tradition—the sun and moon; the planets Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Venus, and Mercury; and personifications of the fluctuating lunar nodes—descend in similar fashion. The painting uses the "deities in descent" scheme originating in China, as well as the original Buddhist form mandala (Japanese: honjibutsu mandarazu) format prevalent in medieval Japanese Shinto-Buddhist painting, to generate an image connected to the worship of celestial bodies in Esoteric Buddhism.
  • June 13, 2014
    (Piasa Auction house, Paris, France, June 13, 2014, Lot. 261, sold to Leighton R. Longhi Inc.)
    2014–15
    (Leighton R. Longhi Inc., New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
    2015–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Cleveland Museum of Art. Museum Masters: 2016-17 Companion Guide. [Cleveland, Ohio]: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2016. Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 84–85
    Vilbar, Sinéad. “Acquisitions 2015: Japanese Art.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 56, no. 2 (March/April 2016): 34–35. Reproduced: pp. 34, 35; Mentioned: p. 35 archive.org
    編集・発行奈良国立博物館., and hakkō Nara Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan henshū. 春日信仰を中心とした南都における神祇信仰の展開とその遺品に関する総合的研究. Edited by 奈良国立博物館 and Nara Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan. Nara-shi Noboriōji-chō: 奈良国立博物館, 2017. Reproduced: pp. 78–79, fig. 13
    Vilbar, Sinéad. "A Celestial Landing: The Seven Stars and the Nine Celestials Descending at Kasuga." Arts of Asia 48, no. 3 (May-June 2018): 68–77. Reproduced: p. 68, fig. 1; p. 72, fig. 8 (detail)
    Vilbar, Sinéad, and Kevin Gray Carr. Shinto: Discovery of the Divine in Japanese Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2019. Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 242–245, no. 96
    Longhi, Leighton R. Leighton R. Longhi: Forty-Five Years in Asian Art. [New York, N.Y.]: Leighton R. Longhi, 2019. Reproduced: p. 49, fig. 30
  • Shinto: Discovering the Divine in Japanese Art 神道－日本美術における神性の発見. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 9-June 30, 2019).
    Japanese and Korean Gallery Rotation. The Cleveland Museum of Art (July 6, 2015-January 4, 2016).
  • {{cite web|title=Descent of the Nine Luminaries and the Seven Stars at Kasuga|url=false|author=|year=mid- to late 1300s|access-date=18 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2015.63