20TH CENTURY

Details

A PAIR OF MASSIVE CLOISONNÉ ENAMEL BUDDHIST LIONS
20TH CENTURY
Each lion is shown seated facing forward on a rectangular pedestal base, with mouth open in a roar. One has its feet placed protectively on its cub, the other on a brocade ball. The body is richly decorated with flowers and scrolls and the chest is spanned by a yellow collar hung with one loose and two stationary bells, and tied in back with trailing ribbons that are in relief, as are the tail and curly mane. The pedestal is also richly decorated and made to look as if draped with a yellow cloth embroidered with Buddhist lions playing with ribbon-tied brocade balls.
56 in. (142.3 cm.) high

Provenance

Acquired in Hong Kong, 1989.

Lot Essay

A pair of massive cloisonné enamel Buddhist lions of this type can be seen flanking a screen in a photograph of a display at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, held in San Francisco in 1915, and illustrated by Bèatrice Quette (ed.) in Cloisonné: Chinese Enamels from the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, Bard Graduate Center, New York, 2011, p. 211, fig. 10.27.

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