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A RARE PAINTED MARBLE FIGURE OF A BODHISATTVA
- NORTHERN ZHOU/SUI DYNASTY (557-618)

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A RARE PAINTED MARBLE FIGURE OF A BODHISATTVA
NORTHERN ZHOU/SUI DYNASTY (557-618)
Estimate
(Set Currency)
    $200,000 - $300,000

Sale Information

Sale 2196
fine chinese ceramics and works of art
15 September 2009
New York, Rockefeller Plaza

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Lot Description

A RARE PAINTED MARBLE FIGURE OF A BODHISATTVA
NORTHERN ZHOU/SUI DYNASTY (557-618)
Standing atop an oval lotus pedestal with right arm raised and left hand pendent at the side holding an ambrosia flask, wearing a dhoti adorned with tassels and ribbons falling in pleats to the feet, the long sash draped over the shoulders, across the torso and looped over the arms, with thickly beaded chains fastened at the shoulder and worn diagonally across the body to meet at the front and back of the waist in rosette clasps, the neck further encircled by short necklaces of chevron design, chains of pearls, beads and a single large pendant suspended from a central chain, the hair dressed in a topknot with trailing ribbons and decorated with a central foliate motif probably containing a stupa, and further encircled by looped, twisted bead chains issuing from tasseled roundels, the square-jawed face well carved with heavily lidded eyes, a full mouth and contemplative expression, traces of red and green pigment and gilding
33 in. (85 cm.) high, stand

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Pre-Lot Text

PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT AMERICAN PRIVATE COLLECTION

Provenance

Stephen Junkunc, III.

Literature

Chicago Sunday Tribune, 7 September 1952, part III, p. 1.

Lot Notes

Stylistically this figure falls between some of the heavier, square-set Northern Zhou figures, such as the one illustrated by Saburo Matsubara, Chugoku Bukkyo Chokokushi Ron, vol. 2, Late Six Dynasties and Sui, Tokyo, 1995, pl. 350, figs. a and b, and some of the more elaborately conceived Northern Zhou figures. Examples of the latter type include the standing bodhisattva dated to the Northen Zhou/Sui dynasty in the Minneapolis Institute of Art and illustrated in Hai-Wai Yi-Chen, Buddhist Sculpture, Taipei, 1986, p. 65, no. 65. See, also, the very ornately bejewelled bodhisattva dated to the Sui dynasty in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, ibid., p. 75, no. 70.

Refer to the exhibition catalogue, Sui to no bijutsu, Osaka Municipal Art Museum, 1976, p. 42, no. 3-25, for a closely related figure in sandstone dated to the Sui dynasty. For other figures which are similar in their rather heavy, somber facial features, also dated to the Sui dynasty, refer to Matsubara, op.cit., pl. 579, fig. a and pl. 580, figs. a and b.

A comparable limestone head of a bodhisattva was sold in these rooms, 3 June 1988, lot 319. Another head, in sandstone, dated to the Sui dynasty, in the C.K. Chan Collection, with a similar garlanded headdress with roundels, is illustrated in Ancient Chinese Buddhist Sculpture, Taiwan, 1989, no. 38.

The rich, three-dimensional jewelry on the present sculpture: complex headdress, chains and beaded garlands, is typical of these Northern Zhou/Sui figures and may betray the influence of Gupta India, which probably traveled to north China from the south. Other features on the present figure, which are often seen on figures of this date, include the folds of the neck and the rosette clasp which falls below the knees. An interesting archaistic feature is the size of the remaining hand, which is large in proportion to the rest of the body.

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