Nahan (Chinese, Luohan) Riding a Spotted White Deer in a Landscape While Assisted by an Elderly Male Attendant

This painting is mounted and framed as a discrete album leaf. Done in ink and colors on paper, the painting, which might originally have been mounted as a hanging scroll, presumably came from a larger set of multiples, each representing an arhat (Korean: nahan; Chinese: luohan) -- saintly, enlightened beings who protect the Buddhist faith. This painting depicts an arhat sitting on the back of a spotted white deer in the center of the composition. The arhat's grayish blue monk’s robe sports modest decoration painted in gold; his patchwork cape boasts squares of red fabric embellished with gold designs within black borders. At the right edge of the composition stands an attendant dressed in a red robe, a large hat made of spotted bamboo hangs from a string around the attendant's neck and rests at the middle of his back. The two figures appear in a confined landscape of the archaistic blue-and-green type. Sprigs of bamboo crown the tall rock that rises at the left edge, while a plant with orange blossoms grows at its base. A banana plant and stylized flowers decorate the faceted rock that borders the right edge. A rippling stream crosses the center of the composition, separating the even-toned green foreground from the distant background.