MING DYNASTY, 16TH-17TH CENTURY

Distinguished by its monumentality and lively detailed modelling, the present pair of white marble lions would have been placed in front of a gate or guarding an entrance. Similar white marble lions of this monumental size and quality are very rare to find at auctions. Compare a similar pair of white marble lions (160 cm. high) dated to late Ming dynasty from Yamanaka Shokai, Japan, sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 8 April 2010, lot 1848; and two other smaller pairs, one dated to Ming dynasty (127.5 cm. high), sold at Christie's London, 3 November 2020, lot 23, and one circa 1900 (116 cm. high), sold at Christie's London, 9 November 2010, lot 249.

It is noteworthy that the style of the diaper pattern found on the brocade cover on top of the integral stand is very similar to the diaper ground found on contemporaneous carved cinnabar lacquer wares, such as the two circular boxes dated to the 16^th-century in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Carving the Subtle Radiance of Colors: Treasured Lacquerware in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, 2008, p. 64, nos. 42-43.