TANG DYNASTY (618-907)

Details

A RARE LARGE PAIR OF PAINTED AND GILDED POTTERY FIGURES OF LOKAPALAS
TANG DYNASTY (618-907)
Each powerfully modeled, one shown standing atop a recumbent bull with one foot on its head and the other on its rump, his hands clenched in front of his belly which protrudes from underneath his layered armor worn under long robes which trail down from the tall, stiff collar, his face with fierce expression beneath his tall helmet, the second similarly dressed figure standing atop a recumbent deer, and shown in a dramatic pose with hands raised as if to hold a weapon, his bearded face with intent gaze below the tall phoenix-form crown, the armor and robes picked out in turquoise and orange pigment and painted with floral scroll, the edges of the armor richly gilded
29¼ and 28¼ in. (74.3 and 71.9 cm.) high (2)

Provenance

Sotheby's, New York, 1-2 December 1992, lot 246.

Exhibited

Tending the Afterlife: Chinese Tomb Art from the Neolithic Period to the Ming Dynasty, The Trammell and Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art, 27 September 2008 - 16 August 2009.
Fabled Journeys in Asian Art: East Asia, The Trammell and Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art, July 2011 - January 2012.

Lot Essay

Pairs of figures of this type were placed in the entry corridor of tombs, along with pairs of officials and pairs of earth spirits, as evidenced by the location of such figures in the previously undisturbed Tang dynasty tomb of General An Pu discovered at Longmen, Luoyang. See R.L. Thorp, Son of Heaven: Imperial Art of China, Seattle, 1988, pp. 199-205.

A painted pottery lokapala similar to the present figure, elaborately armored and of comparable size (71.1 cm.), is in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, and is illustrated in The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, Hudson Hills Press, New York, 1993, p. 293.
The result of Oxford thermoluminescence test no. 666f5 is consistent with the dating of this lot.

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