Mahamayuri on Peacock
Recasting the Past: the Art of Chinese Bronzes Exhibition
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Text by Ed Voves
Original photography by Anne Lloyd and Ed Voves
In an Art Eyewitness post earlier this year, I promised a return visit to Recasting the Past: the Art of Chinese Bronzes, 1100-1900, on view at The Met until September 28, 2025.
The Met's remarkable exhibition convincingly demonstrates that the casting of bronze works of art in China was much more than a long postscript to the glorious Shang bronzes created in China's distant antiquity. Amazingly, this belief was held by a number of reputable scholars.
Having more than proved its point that the long tradition of Chinese mastery in casting bronze and metal alloy works of art extended to modern times, Recasting the Past concludes on a surprising, almost unsettling note.
Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025) Mahamayuri on Peacock,1426-35
The last work on display looks distinctly uncharacteristic of China's artistic conventions. It is a masterpiece so spectacular, so uniquely expressive that it seems more of a stand-alone display than the grand finale of an exhibition detailing the Chinese devotion to fugu, the "return to the past."
Ed Voves, Photo (2025)
Gallery view of the Recasting the Past exhibition at The Met
This singular masterpiece is entitled Mahamayuri on Peacock. It dates to 1426-35, a cultural high point of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). One of the highlights of Berlin's Ethnologisches Museum, Mahamayuri is making a rare visit to the U.S. and its presence in The Met exhibit is deeply significant, as well as a wonder to behold.
The spiritual ideals which which led Chinese artisans of the Ming-era to create Mahamayuri on Peacock can be traced to three of Asia's great "awakenings." In this single work of art can be traced the birth of Buddhism in ancient India, its migration to the kingdoms of the Himalayan region and, finally, the integration of Buddhism within the traditions of Chinese culture.
Mahamayuri is a bodhisattva, a being striving toward enlightenment or Buddhahood. An important aspect of this process of "becoming" is the bodhisattva's compassion for humanity and indeed all fellow creatures.
Mahamayuri is a Sanskrit name meaning "Great Peahen", in token of the reputation of these extraordinary birds for devouring snakes. One of the principal tasks of Mahamayuri is to safeguard people from poisonous snakes and to help cure those who fall victim to these dangerous reptiles.
Mahamayuri, it should be noted, is viewed as a protector against spiritual poisons, as well as snake venom. At some point in the journey of Buddhism from India to China and further into East Asia, Mahamayuri changed from peahen to peacock. But Mahamayuri remained a female wisdom figure.
Like the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, who was renamed Guanyin upon reaching China, so Mahamayuri gained a new name in China, Kongque Mingwang (Peacock Wisdom King). And just as the beloved Guanyin was revered for her mercy and benevolence, so the Peacock Wisdom King was extolled as a protector against dangers and calamities, poisonous snakebites as noted above, but also natural disasters, floods and droughts.
According to the accompanying text provided by The Met curators:
This esoteric Buddhist icon reflects an imaginative fusion of Chinese and Tibetan iconographies in the imperial Ming workshop. In the Chinese Buddhist tradition, the icon has only one face and four arms, while the icon in Tibetan Buddhism does not usually ride a peacock. This new representation of Mahamayuri continued into later centuries.
The Ming-era Mahamayuri/Kongque Mingwang on view in The Met exhibition is thus a synthesis of spiritual traditions from across Asia.
The three faces, with their benevolent expressions, beam with the wisdom and compassion of a bodhisattva, so cherished by devout Buddhists and other spiritually-motivated people throughout the world.
In the six hands of the Peacock Wisdom King we see some of the symbolical instruments of her protective power - a sword, a scepter, a casket for holding jewels.
In the other hands, a lotus flower, a small piece of fruit, peacock feathers would also have been displayed. All speak of compassion for suffering humanity. All are symbols - and potent ones - for those who seek spiritual enlightenment.
This soul-nurturing work of art made a powerful impression on me on each of my two visits to Recasting the Past. It is the latest in a line of truly inspiring Asian exhibitions at The Met, beginning with the 2014 exhibition, Lost Kingdoms: Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Early Southeast Asia.
Part of the reason that Mahamayuri on Peacock registered so powerfully on me is its appeal on a first-time viewer. But I was no less enthralled the second time I beheld this wondrous work of art. If I'm fortunate to make a third visit, I think my reaction will be the same.
I could continue with personal reflections, but I will refrain. The most telling comment on the appeal and attraction of such an astonishing work of art comes from Andre Malroux's The Voices of Silence. And to this great French sage, we will now turn:
The supreme power of art, and of love, is that they urge us to exhaust in them the inexhaustible! The eagerness to enjoy art to the full is no new thing; what is new is that it is leading to the rediscoveries of works whose message fascinates us alike, whether their values seem friendly to us or hostile.
Hostility is not a word I would apply to Mahamayuri on Peacock. Exotic. Uncanny Extraordinary. Difficult to understand. Yes, all of these attributes are a factor, as I grapple with comprehending it.
Yet, when I stood before Mahamayuri on Peacock at The Met and, now, when i look-over the photos which Anne and I took, it is the "inexhaustible" power, warmth and empathy of this astonishing work of art which I feel.
I want to go back to The Met and try to exhaust the Peacock Wisdom King's inexhaustible store of spiritual treasures ... which, of course, I will never succeed in doing.
***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights
reserved Original photography, copyright of Anne
Lloyd and Ed Voves
Anne Lloyd, Photo (2025) Mahamayuri on Peacock, Ming dynasty (1368–1644), Xuande mark and period (1426–35). Gilt copper alloy: H. 57 1/16 in. (145 cm); W. 47 1/4 in. (120 cm); D. 25 9/16 in. (65 cm); Wt. 196.4 lb (89.1 kg) Collection of Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
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