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Lot Essay
This bamboo carving depicting Shoulao is stylistically similar to another bamboo figure of Shoulao with a young boy included in Ip. Yee and Laurence C.S. Tam, Chinese Bamboo Carving, Part II, Hong Kong Museum of Art, The Urban Council 1982, pp.278-279, pl.90.
The treatment of the rocks, the beard, the face, the shape of the shoes and the carving of the cloth hair covering with long tabs in back is very similar. The deity is represented with a young attendant while the current example includes several. However, in both representations, the presence of young boys in the group symbolize fertility and a wish for many sons.
Compare the present lot to the larger figure offered in our New York Rooms, 19 September 2006, lot 49.
The treatment of the rocks, the beard, the face, the shape of the shoes and the carving of the cloth hair covering with long tabs in back is very similar. The deity is represented with a young attendant while the current example includes several. However, in both representations, the presence of young boys in the group symbolize fertility and a wish for many sons.
Compare the present lot to the larger figure offered in our New York Rooms, 19 September 2006, lot 49.