ETHAS 065928
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The Japanese Pantheon database brings together most of the iconography of Japan's religions preserved at the MEG (762 objects).
The core of the collection has been assembled by André Leroi-Gourhan (1911-1986). A graduate in Russian and Chinese from the Institut des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, Leroi-Gourhan stayed in Japan from 1937 to 1939, on a scholarship from the Japanese government. Later in life, he was to become the famous ethnologist and prehistorian, and a professor at the Collège de France. During his stay, Leroi-Gourhan collected, among other things, some 700 iconographic documents on shintō and Japanese Buddhism. After his death, this collection was donated to the MEG by his wife Arlette Leroi-Gourhan (1913-2005), who became known as the initiator of prehistoric palynology.
The main part of this collection consists of ofuda, a term designating vignettes distributed by temples to pilgrims and representing, most often, the statue revered in the temple but usually hidden from public view. Leroi-Gourhan also brought back a few dozen ofuda to the Musée de l'Homme, which are currently kept at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris.
The MEG database also includes artifacts that are part of a bequest from the woman of letters Kikou Yamata (1897-1975), wife of the painter Conrad Meili (1895-1969), as well as various pieces collected by Jean Eracle (1930-2005), curator of the MEG's Asia department.
The search engine is case-insensitive (buddha = Buddha).
Amida Nyorai searches for records containing both terms.
Amida -Nyorai excludes the presence of the second term.
Ami* searches for all words beginning with Ami.
"le Grand maître" searches for records containing the literal phrase.
© 2021 Musée d'ethnographie, Genève