Christian H. Fishbacher (1914-2006) was the oldest son and heir of a Swiss family textile business. He emigrated to America at 22 and in 1937 founded his own company in New York, dealing not only in fabrics but creating and marketing his own collection. During World War II he moved to New Jersey where he raised livestock and had a dairy herd. After the war he returned to New York and his business, but returned to Switzerland in 1953 to rejoin the family business after the death of his father. To this day the business designs, produces and markets its own fabric collections. Following in the tradition of his family, Christian Fishbacher also collected art, in his case focusing on the 20th century with an emphasis on constructivist art, spanning Rodchenko to Schwitters. During his travels around the world he also discovered an interest in Asian art, especially that of India and Southeast Asia, but China as well, with an emphasis on sculpture. His choices reflect the refined taste and discernment of a man of many interests. PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF CHRISTIAN FISCHBACHER

A RARE CARVED WOOD FIGURE OF A BODHISATTVA

LATE TANG DYNASTY, 10TH CENTURY

Details

A RARE CARVED WOOD FIGURE OF A BODHISATTVA
LATE TANG DYNASTY, 10TH CENTURY
Shown standing on a waisted plinth, with left arm bent and forearm raised and the head turned slightly to the right, wearing elaborate beaded jewelry including a necklace that spans the chest and falls in a loop to the belly where it is gathered behind a tassle-hung rosette at the waist of the sash-draped, flared skirt and then loops up on either side to then be gathered at another rosette at the waist in back, the face carved with gentle features, and the hair pulled up into a large topknot above a petal-carved crown decorated with rosettes and beaded chains that fall atop the tresses of hair that trail down the shawl-draped shoulders
17 in. (43.2 cm.) high

Provenance

Spink & Son, Zurich, 3 January 1974.

Lot Essay

Wood figures dating to the Tang dynasty are extremely rare. Of the few recorded examples, this exceptional figure appears to be one of only four known which depict Buddhist deities. Two of these four wood figures represent the Eleven-headed Guanyin, and include one dated to the late seventh century in the Cleveland Museum of Art, illustrated by D. Jenkins, Masterworks in Wood: China and Japan, Portland Art Museum, 1976, p. 39, no. 9; the other is illustrated by R. Ghose, In The Footsteps of the Buddha, The University of Hong Kong, 1998, no. 78. The fourth wood figure, which is missing its head and arms, is a figure of a bodhisattva in the Berlin Museum illustrated in Fujiao Diaosu Mingpin Tulu, Beijing, 1997, p. 360, no. 340.
The other few wood figures known dating to the Tang period more often appear to follow painted pottery models, and generally depict court ladies. See, for example, two painted wood female figures of this type included in the exhibition, Ancient Chinese Sculptural Treasures: Carvings in Wood, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, June 1998, nos. 38 and 40; the examples included in the exhibition, Ancient Chinese Sculpture from the Alsdorf Collection and Others, Eskenazi, London, 12 June - 6 July 1990, nos. 6-10; and Arts of Ancient China, J.J. Lally & Co., New York, 31 May - 23 June 1990, nos. 14-18. See, also, the figure of this type sold in these rooms, 16 September 1999, lot 3.

The results of a radiocarbon analysis is consistent with the dating of this lot.

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