A rare and important gray limestone figure, Sui / Tang dynasty

拍品描述

Property from an Important Brazilian Private Collection the head of Buddha atop a likely associated body of a monk or attendant, stand (2) Height 55⅛ in., 140 cm The embodiment of wisdom and enlightenment, peering down to the beholder with compassion and grace, the present lot represents a rare and extraordinary depiction of the Buddha from the turning point of Chinese visual arts. Later associated with the body of a humble monk or attendant with mala (rosary) in hand, a diaphanous dhoti (robe) draped softly around his shoulders, a skirt tied gently around his waist with an elegant bow, and his rough hands and tender chest rendered with exceptional skill and softness— the present assemblage is a triumph of observation, skill and religious devotion. Following centuries of division and fragmentation during the Six Dynasties and Northern and Southern Dynasties periods, the Sui dynasty (581–618) saw the final reunification of China and the advent of lasting governance. Founded by Emperor Wen (Yang Jian, 541–604), the Sui dynasty was typified by enormous national efforts, including the building of the Grand Canal, extending the Great Wall and— crucial here — the promotion of Buddhism. Wen and his family had converted to Buddhism to establish themselves as the rightful leaders of China, so-called Cakravartin (‘wheel-turning’) Kings, after the likes of Mauryan King Ashoka, and fiercely promoted a return to Buddhism as part of a broader promotion of a scholarly Han identity, building hundreds of new temples under Sui patronage and distributing Buddhist relics across China in 601. Filling these temples and accompanying these relics were large numbers of figural works, paintings and reliefs that spoke to the continuity of Buddhist history in China but which highlighted too the advent of a new age. As the Sui dynasty began to decline at the start of the seventh century, it was the Tang dynasty (618–907) that would take up the mantle of governing China and promoting Buddhist thought until its suppression in the 840s. Rising in tandem with the proliferation of the printing press, Buddhism continued to spread throughout the Tang dynasty, simultaneously growing more localized in the development of native practices and visual motifs and more globalized in its incorporation of new deities, philosophies and sculptural styles from across the prospering Silk Road. It is in this milieu of continuity and rebirth that the present lot is best understood. While closely reminiscent of carvings from antecedent dynasties in its grandeur, pose, clothing and expression, the present head and body are also remarkably fresh, lively and experimental in a fashion typical of the Sui and Tang dynasties. With a long narrow face, sharp brow, fleshy dimpled cheeks and a small mouth with a prominent lower lip and philtrum, the iconography of the present head aligns closely with those of the Northern Qi dynasty (550–577) and particularly examples attested in Shaanxi, Shanxi and Hebei contexts, from whence the most austere and powerful of these images are derived. Similarly, the swirling coiffeur of the head, while more developed than its antecedents, is essentially a continuation of a Northern Wei (386–535) style, in which vigorous knife strokes frame the serene brow and subtle cranial protrusion (ushnisha). The associated body of the present figure similarly presents itself as a descendent of these mid-sixth-century northern traditions. Related standing figures with humble robes draped skillfully from one side are typically associated with Northern Qi sites like Qingzhou; delicate flat knotwork after the Eastern Wei (534–550); and the relatively short limbs and broad shoulders not out of place in a Northern Zhou (557–581) context. However, despite the general continuity of figural art in the Sui and early Tang dynasties, figures like the present are also uncontrovertibly novel. While the complex swirling hair of this design may have been conceived by the Northern Wei, its rendering here, in subtle undulating waves about an understated ushnisha and cudamani (crown jewel), appears to be completely unprecedented and rare even in Tang contexts. The face too, while austere like its forebears, possesses a subtle ‘sweetness,’ typically and uniquely Sui or Tang in its subtle smile and large downcast eyes, which betray a remarkable sense of naturalism and observation. Clutching a mala, his waist leaning ever so slightly in his belt and his exposed chest lowered softly in a serene pose, the body of the present figure appears to derive from that of a monk or arhat (Ch. luohan) from a related Buddhist context, which was later associated with the present head. Representing early followers of the historical Buddha who gained true insight and achieved nirvana, figures of monks and arhats are frequently attested in Tang contexts alongside central figures of the Buddha himself. Compare, for example, the Tang dynasty procession of arhats carved in high relief at the Kanjing Temple, Longmen Grottoes, Luoyang, with similarly two-layered robes and exposed chests, each clutching its own attributes and possessing an individuality of pose; see Longmen shiku [Longmen grotto], Beijing, 1980, pls 190-196, the arhat in pl. 196 supporting his robe with one hand and a mala rosary with the other. Favourable comparisons can also be made with pairs of standing figures which flank central images of the Buddha in grotto and temple contexts, and are usually identified as his earliest disciples, Ananda and Mahakasyapa. Compare the body of a monk, with hands joined before him clutching a mala in the collection of the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City (accession no. 40-35), included in Special Exhibition of Buddhist Portraiture, Nara National Museum, Nara, 1981, p. 202, cat. no. 199. Surviving examples of figural work from this period of tradition and innovation are exceedingly rare, let alone those assembled into a figure of this scale. Like the present figure, said to derive from 'Nan Tch'ang Tch'eng' in 'Shansi' province, many of the finest surviving examples of related technique are similarly attributed to the same so-called ‘Shanxi school’ of carving. Compare a large Sui dynasty figure of similar softened pose, understated ushnisha and robes tied to one side with a somewhat wider head, originally from Mili in Yishi country and now in the Shanxi Provincial Museum, illustrated in Saburo Matsubara, Chugoku bukkyo chokoku shiron [History of Chinese Buddhist sculpture], vol. 2, pl. 552; and another smaller Sui figure of slightly more conventional Northern Qi style but related proportions and facial rendering in the Rietberg Museum, Zurich, illustrated ibid., pl. 504b, and similarly attributed to the Shanxi school. The subtle incorporation of the Buddha’s ushnisha into a more naturalistic two-tiered coiffeur appears to remain fairly atypical throughout the Sui and Tang dynasties but attested in Shanxi province. Compare four large seated Buddhas with similarly subtle hair treatments and related pointed brows attributed to the Tang dynasty in Sirén, op. cit., vol. 3, pls 221, 225, 226, 227; three figures with similarly articulated pectoral muscles, pls 380–382; and two further seated figures of Tang dating with related chest rendering and overall proportions in Saburo Matsubara, op. cit, vol. 3: a fragment in the Palace Museum, Beijing, dated Tianbao fifth year (716), pl. 721; and another figure in the Eisei Bunko Museum, Tokyo, pl. 714. Similar austerity yet sweetness of facial rendering can also be seen in a closely related head from the collection of David David-Weill (1871-1952), illustrated in Osvald Sirèn, Chinese Sculpture, London, 1925, vol. II, pl. 333, which also shares a similarly innovative rendering of the Buddha’s curled hair and ushnisha and was more recently sold from the Alsdorf Collection, 24th September 2020, lot 809. The present figure is particularly notable in its storied provenance, preserved in the West for around a hundred years. First presented to the market by the famous dealer C.T. Loo (1880–1957) in the early twentieth century alongside many of the most important Buddhist figures in the West, the figure has remained almost exclusively in private hands for the past century, quietly treasured by collectors and resurfacing on rare occasions in the market or in the hands of the world’s leading dealers.

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