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A VERY RARE GREY LIMESTONE BUST OF A GUARDIAN DEITY
A VERY RARE GREY LIMESTONE BUST OF A GUARDIAN DEITY

NORTHERN QI DYNASTY, 6TH CENTURY, XIANGTANGSHAN CAVES

细节
A VERY RARE GREY LIMESTONE BUST OF A GUARDIAN DEITY
NORTHERN QI DYNASTY, 6TH CENTURY, XIANGTANGSHAN CAVES
Powerfully carved as the bust of a muscular guardian deity, his head turned to the left and his eyes focused in an intent gaze, his neatly arranged hair surmounted by a tiered crown secured by a strap around his forehead
15½ in. (39.5 cm.) high, wood stand, Japanese wood box
来源
Private Japanese collection, acquired in Japan in the 1920s.
展览
Tokyo Art Club, Chinese Stone Sculpture, 8-13 October 1964.
Kuboso Memorial Museum, Chuugoku no Bijutsu, Izumi City, Japan, 14 October - 2 December 1984, p. 72.

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拍品专文

The name Xiangtangshan, or 'Mountain of Echoing Halls,' refers to a series of cave sites in southern Hebei, datable by inscriptions and engravings to the Northern Qi period (550-577), a period characterized by significant artistic production. Extant sculpture from Xiangtangshan in private collections are extremely rare, with sculpture from such cave sites as Longmen and Yungang being more commonly seen. While it is nearly impossible to trace the present guardian figure to a specific location within one of the cave complexes forming the Xiantangshang grottoes, it does share in common several features including the distinct type of limestone.

The present figure would have been a part of a larger, and relatively flattened, wall relief. It would have been angled sharply so the figure would be facing the viewer head on, and it was only after the sculpture had been removed and mounted in its present state that the perspective has become slightly skewed. It is quite possible that the present figure was flanking a bodhisattva or Buddha, and may have been part of a much larger frieze similar to one found in the Southern Complex, Cave 2, illustrated by K. Tsiang in the exhibition catalogue, Echoes of the Past: The Buddhist Cave Sculptures of Xiangtangshan, Chicago, 2010, pp. 212-13, no. 24, where figures attending a central Buddha can be seen with headdresses similar to that seen on the present figure. The same headdress can also be seen on three related flattened limestone busts of musicians from the North Altar Platform of the Southern Cave Complex, in the collections of the Masaki Art Museum, The Museum of Oriental Ceramics, and the Osaka Municipal Museum of Art, respectively illustrated ibid., p. 243, nos. 40-42.