Page 46 - 2019 September 11th Bonhams Lewis Collection Japanese and Korean Art NYC

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A POLYCHROME WOOD FIGURE OF FUDO MYO-O (ACALA)
Muromachi period (1333-1573), 15th/16th century
The figure shown seated cross-legged, modeled with the soft
figure of a youth but with a stern facial expression, the upper and
lower fangs protruding from the clenched mouth, a lotus crown
adorning the figure’s head and the hair swept to one side in a braid
down the left shoulder and gathered in a double lotus flower tie,
a kurikara(Buddhist sword) held in the right hand and a weighted rope
in the left (both later additions), the robes draped around his waist
and over the left shoulder and decorated with dharma wheel, floral,
and geometric patterns in gilt, the upper arms with bands gathered
with chrysanthemum bosses, the eyes inlaid in reverse-painted
crystal, set on a multi-tiered dais decorated with dharma wheels and
roundels of four-pronged vajra punctuated by tightly scrolling vines
in black and red lacquer on a gilt ground, the lowest register applied
with gilt-copper fittings carved with vines
12 3/4in (32.4cm) high (figure only); 23 5/8in (60cm) high overall
$15,000 - 20,000

Provenance
René Guiette (1893-1976)
Purchased from James B. Godfrey, New York, 1987

For a similar but larger example of somewhat earlier date, compare
the figure of Fudo attributed to Higo Jotei preserved in the Myo-o-in,
Kamakura, as the only survivor of a set of five Myo-o and designated
as an Important Cultural Property; see Kamakura Kokuhokan
(Kamakura Museum of National Treasures), Tokubetsu ten Kamakura
mikkyo (Special Exhibition of Esoteric Buddhist Art from Kamakura),
2011, cover illustration. The Jotei figure is one of a group of late
Heian- and early Kamakura-period figures of Fudo that set the deity’s
iconography for centuries to come; the present lot, one of the finest
images of the “Immovable One” in an American private collection,
admirably preserves the ferocity of earlier prototypes while adding a
sense of softness, appropriate to a smaller figure intended for private
devotion.

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