A WELL-CARVED WOOD FIGURE OF A BODHISATTVA

PROPERTY FROM AN AMERICAN PRIVATE COLLECTION

Details

A WELL-CARVED WOOD FIGURE OF A BODHISATTVA
SONG DYNASTY

Shown seated in maharajalilasana atop a pierced rockwork base, wearing loose robes falling in crisp, well-defined pleats at the front, and a long scarf draped over the shoulders, across the torso, looped over the right arm and falling in a decorative knot at the base, the neck encircled by a jeweled necklace, the arms with armbands and bracelets, the delicate features set in a peaceful expression below the carefully dressed hair looped over the ears and pulled up in a topknot behind a foliate diadem, with traces of black, red and white pigment, gesso and gilding
19½in. (49.5cm.) high, stand

Provenance

Stephen Junkunc III
Alice Boney, 1954

Lot Essay

The elongated and rather youthful figure of the bodhisattva suggests that it belongs to the Southern Song sculptural tradition. While the face has lost some of the plumpness of the Tang and Five Dynasties sculpture, the body has not attained the fullness of Yuan pieces

A Five Dynasties figure, with more of a rounded Tang face but comparable figure and drapery, in The Denver Art Museum, was included by Donald Jenkins in the exhibition Catalogue, Masterworks in Wood: China and Japan, Portland Art Museum and Asia House Gallery, 1976-77, no. 10; the same figure was also included by H. Trubner in the exhibition, The Arts of the T'ang Dynasty, Los Angeles County Museum, 1957, Catalogue, no. 59

Refer, also, to the smaller wood bodhisattva dated to the Jin period, with a rather more fleshy upper body exhibited in Early Chinese Art from Tombs and Temples, Eskenazi, London, June 8- July 9, 1993, Catalogue, no. 47