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† A FINE LIMESTONE HEAD OF A BODHISATTVA, SUI DYNASTY, 581-618
奥地利
2024年12月17日 开拍
拍品描述
? A FINE LIMESTONE HEAD OF A BODHISATTVA, SUI DYNASTY, 581-618

Expert authentication: Dr. Chang Qing has authenticated this lot, identifying its iconographic and stylistic characteristics as typical of Sui dynasty images found in Xi’an in Shaanxi and some areas of Shandong province. A notarized copy of Dr. Chang’s expertise, dated April 19, 2021, in the State of New York, accompanies this lot.
Dr. Chang holds a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Kansas and has held prestigious positions, including post-doctoral fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and senior research fellow at the Freer and Sackler Galleries of the Smithsonian Institute. He has conducted extensive research in China, participating in archaeological excavations at various historical sites. Dr. Chang is the author of several influential works, including Compassionate Beings in Metal and Stone: Chinese Buddhist Sculptures from The Freer Gallery of Art (2016), and Light of the Buddha in the Desert: Essays on Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang from 5th-14th Centuries (2012). He is currently a professor at Arts College, Sichuan University.

China. The face is carved with half-closed eyes and a slight smile, flanked by ears with pendulous lobes pierced with hoop earrings, beneath an elaborate openwork headdress carved with looped and pendent beaded chains at the front, and tied at the back with ribbons with ends trailing at either side of the face.

Provenance: From a private collection in New York, United States.
Condition: Extensive remnants of ancient gilt. Very good condition, commensurate with age. Wear, obvious losses, structural fissures, encrustations, chips, and nicks. A small repair to a section of the headdress. Some weathering and traces of erosion.

Weight: 39.1 kg (excl. stand)
Dimensions: Height 39.1 cm (excl. stand)

With an associated stand. (2)

Sumptuously carved with fleshy cheeks, broad arched brows and a large straight nose that leads the eye down to the plump lips, these features exemplify a crucial sculptural transition from the linear and structured depictions of bodhisattvas of the preceding Northern Qi (550-577) and Northern Zhou (557-581) periods to the fully rounded and fleshy forms of the Tang dynasty (618-907). Its oval face and idealized expression, which exude deep spirituality, display an early attempt at naturalism, while its richly carved crown with floral petals is reminiscent of the stylized aesthetic of the preceding dynasties.

The Sui dynasty unified China in 589 after a long period of cultural, political and military fragmentation, which began with the fall of the Han dynasty in 220 AD. Buddhism was seen as a means to unite the empire and consolidate dynastic power, hence Sui rulers began the construction of major religious buildings and commissioned Buddhist images. While stylistically Sui sculptures continue in the traditions established in the preceding dynasties, 'characteristics that were latent in the two preceding styles were brought to full blossom by Sui carvers' (Angela F. Howard, Chinese Sculpture, New Haven, 2006, p. 290). Osvald Sirén in ‘Chinese Marble Sculptures of the Transition Period’, BMFEA 1940, no. 12, p. 490, states that 'The observation of nature seems indeed to have increased as well as the mastery of the sculptural form'.

Auction result comparison:
Type: Closely related
Auction: Christie’s New York, 23 March 2018, lot 1037
Price: USD 68,750 or approx. EUR 81,500 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: A carved limestone head of a Bodhisattva
Expert remark: Compare the closely related modeling and manner of carving with similar foliate headdress. Note the size (30.5 cm).



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