Chinese Qi Dynasty Gilded Stone Buddha Head

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Art of Asia | Antiquity to Present

By Artemis Gallery

Mar 11, 2021

Set Reminder 2021-03-11 12:00:00 2021-03-11 12:00:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : Art of Asia | Antiquity to Present https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/artemis-gallery/art-of-asia-antiquity-to-present-6497
Featuring antiquities, ancient and works of art ranging from the third millennium BCE to the present from China, Japan, South and Southeast Asia, and Korea. Including jades, bronzes, lacquer, textiles, paintings, prints, sculpture, ceramics, metalwork, and other art forms in other media. Artemis Gallery info@artemisgallery.com

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• Lot Description
  East Asia, China, Northern Qi Dynasty, ca. 550 to 577 CE. An incredibly preserved limestone carving of the head of Buddha, with nice remaining dark pigment, especially on the hair, and gilding on the face. The face shows the influence of Chinese artists on Buddhist imagery, with the Buddha's face depicted as broad, split in half by a thin nose descending from the elegantly arched eyebrows. A small, full-lipped mouth is above the dimpled chin. The eyes are large, with heavy lids, and downcast. The ears are also large, with a spiral shape at the top and elongated lobes, referencing the wealth of Prince Siddhartha before he became enlightened. The head is gently conical and covered in densely packed relief dots to give the impression of tightly curled hair. A clear urna - a dot symbolizing enlightenment - is on the forehead. The hair is painted a dark color, while the face is gilded over black - now faded to dark green - paint. Size: 5.15" W x 8.2" H (13.1 cm x 20.8 cm); 11.45" H (29.1 cm) on included custom stand.
  
  Around the 1st century CE, Buddhism came to China along the Silk Road from India; it brought with it an entirely new visual and artistic iconography. The northern rulers of China in the mid-1st millennium CE sponsored the creation of much beautiful and artistically distinct Buddhist artwork. This example is characteristic of the sculpture produced in Shandong province, northeastern China. The discovery in 1996 of over 400 Buddhist sculptures - broken heads and hands, and hundreds of intact torsos, many with gilding and paint still in good condition - in a field that was once the site of a Buddhist monastery in Qingzhou has allowed archaeologists to understand the artwork of this time period much better. The Qingzhou discovery was the largest known group of such sculptures, but other small caches have been found since the 1970s elsewhere in northeastern China. Fascinatingly, most of these sculptures were made during the Northern Qi period, but were buried - based on coins found alongside them - in the 12th century CE, six hundred years later. This seems to have been done to protect the beautiful artwork from the Qi period from anti-Buddhist sentiment.
  
  See a very similar example at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/60794
  
  Provenance: private Vero Beach, Florida, USA collection aquired in the mid 80's from an old English collection
  
  All items legal to buy/sell under U.S. Statute covering cultural patrimony Code 2600, CHAPTER 14, and are guaranteed to be as described or your money back.
  
  A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany all winning bids.
  
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  #144228

  Condition

  Head is a fragment from a larger sculpture and the neck is rough. Much of the original gilding and pigment remains and nice deposits are on the surface. Excellent remaining detail.
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