Haniwa warrior figure

6th century

Japanese

Haniwa

Haniwa, meaning clay cylinders in Japanese, are hollow, earthenware funerary objects made during the Kofun period. They were not included in the burial chamber with the deceased but were placed on the open surfaces of the burial mound. Warrior figures such as this one would have been placed in a group with other figurative haniwa around the mound. Scholars have proposed several theories on the functions of haniwa but have not reached a consensus due to the lack of written evidence from the Kofun period.

Earthenware

53 1/4 x 16 1/2 x 10 3/4 in. (135.3 x 41.9 x 27.3cm)

Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection

62.44

Provenance: Excavated in Gunma prefecture, 100 miles north of Tokyo, ca. 1930s (as referenced in Milliken, "Masterpieces of Art," 1962); Masanari Matsubara, Ohta City, Japan; [Mayuyama & Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan]; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, January, 1962

Photo: Scott Leen

Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle World's Fair, Masterpieces of Art, April 21 - September 4, 1962.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, 50 Years: A Legacy of Asian Art, June 30,1983 - May 30, 1984.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, A Thousand Cranes: Treasures of Japanese Art, February 5 - July 12, 1987.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Luminous: The Art of Asia, October 13, 2011 - January 8, 2012.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Asian Art Museum, A Fuller View of China, Japan, and Korea, August 10, 2013 - April 13, 2014.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Asian Art Museum, Boundless: Stories of Asian Art, February 8, 2020 - July 2023.

Tokyo, Japan, Tokyo National Museum, Haniwa: Tomb Sculptures of Japan, October 16 - December 8, 2024 (Dazaifu, Japan, Kyushu National Museum, January 21 - May 11, 2025).

Published ReferencesKidder, J.E., Jr.. Japan Before Buddhism. London: Thames and Hudson, 1959; p. 197, pl. 96.

100 Masterpieces from the Collection of the Tokyo National Museum. Tokyo: Tokyo National Museum, 1959; pl. B.

Milliken, William M. and Davis, Norman. Masterpieces of Art: Seattle World's Fair. Seattle: Century 21 Exposition, Inc., 1962; pp. 10, 20-21, cat. no. 3, ill.

Rogers, Millard B. "Recent Acquisitions of the Seattle Art Museum." Archaeology 17, no. 4 (December 1964): pp. 262-269, ill. b&w 264.

Thomas, Edward B. "Oriental Art in the Seattle Art Museum." Art in America, no. 1 (1965): p. 54, ill.

Trubner, Henry. Asian Art in the Seattle Art Museum: Fifty Years of Collecting. Seattle: Seattle Art Museum, 1983; pp. 10-11, ill. b&w.

Fuller, Richard E. A Gift to the City. Seattle, WA: Seattle Art Museum, 1993; p. 36.

Kangas, Matthew. Robert Sperry: Bright Abyss. Pomona: American Museum of Ceramic Art, 2008; p. 55.

Lukavic, John. Revolt, 1680/2180: Virgil Ortiz, exh. cat. Denver: Denver Art Museum, 2015; reproduced p. 12 [not in exhibition].

Haniwa: Tomb Sculptures of Japan. Exh. cat. Tokyo: Tokyo National Museum, 2024; no. 59, pp. 120, 132, 133, 254, 289.

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