These statues of the Shitenno were for a long time believed to have been created by the family of Kokei, Unkei's father, like the wooden statue of Fukukenjaku Kannon, the principal image of Nanen-do Hall, but advances in research in the late twentieth century revealed that the Shitenno statues currently enshrined in Chukon-do (the temporary Kon-do) were created by Kokei and originally placed in Nanen-do Hall, and the Shitenno statues currently enshrined in Nanen-do Hall were brought there from another hall.
この四天王像は南円堂本尊の不空羂索観音像と同様、運慶の父・康慶一門の作であると長らく信じられていたが、20世紀後半の研究の進展により、現在中金堂（仮金堂）に安置されている四天王像が、もと南円堂にあった康慶作の像であり、現・南円堂の四天王像は他の堂から移されたものであることが明らかになっている。