CHINE, DYNASTIE SONG, XIEME/XIIEME SIECLE

The figure to which this head once belonged would most likely have been part of a set of nearly life size luohans, each one with a different face. For such a pair of wood figures in complete state of preservation also dating to the Song dynasty, representing luohan Ananda and luohan Mahakasyapa, compare Kunsthaus Lempertz, Asiatische Kunst, Auktion 892, Koeln, 9./10. Juni 2006, Nr. 146. A similarly proportioned wood head of an luohan with gentle expression that still retains its original polychrome painted cloth covering was sold in our New York Rooms, 20 September 2005, lot 144. Another wood head of an elderly luohan from the Song dynasty with exaggerated features, laughing expression and bushy brows in the Avery Bundage collection, illustrated by Lefebvre d'Argencé, Chinese, Korean and Japanese sculpture, Asian Art Museum San Francisco, 1974, pp. 270-271, Nr. 142.