Page 132 - 2019 September 10th Sotheby's Important Chinese Art Jades, Met Museum Irving Collection NYC

58 A MARBLE ‘LION’ GROUP

TANG DYNASTY OR LATER
Ⓒ ⣏ the larger lion seated on its haunches on a rectangular base The present sculpture is distinctive among Tang dynasty marble
ㆾ 䎮 with a small cub crawling across the shoulders, the right foreleg carvings of lions in both its naturalism and in the inclusion of
㚜 䞛 raised with the paw cupped inward, the brawny left foreleg a small cub crawling on the parent’s back. The latter trait is
㘂ġġġ 晽 pressing against the ground, the head tilted slightly to one side particularly rare as only a handful of other Tang sculptures,
⛸ with the mouth open in a roar, the fangs exposed and the tongue in any medium, depict an adult male lion with its o! spring.
䋭 ß icked upward, the eyes wide open beneath furrowed brows, the Examples include a limestone ‘lion’ group roughly half the size
ears pressed back against the long mane sweeping down the of the present carving, and with the cub nuzzling against the
neck and brushing against the chest and shoulders, further tufts father’s leg, from the Von Callenberg Collection, sold in our
of fur at the elbows and tail, the stone a warm ivory tone, stand Hong Kong rooms, 7th April 2014, lot 3630; and a sancai-glazed
(2) stoneware Þ gure of a prowling lion carrying the cub in its mouth,
in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art (acc. no.
1940.47).
Height 9⅛ in., 23 cm
Other Tang dynasty marble Þ gures of lions include one, also
approximately half the size of the present, and with a similar
PROVENANCE mane, in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Sotheby’s London, 11th July 1978, lot 37. New York (acc. no. 50.145.330); another, slightly taller than the
Ralph M. Chait Galleries, New York, 27th October 1982. present, in the collection of the British Museum, London (coll.
Collection of Florence (1920-2018) and Herbert (1917-2016) no. 1910,0418.13); a pair from a European collection sold in
Irving, no. 831. our London rooms, 14th May 2014, lot 99; another pair, which
like the present example show the animals with one of the legs
$ 20,000-30,000 raised, sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 4th April 2017, lot 3062;
and a massive marble lion from the Robert Ellsworth Collection,
sold at Christie’s New York, 17th March 2015, lot 16.
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130 SOTHEBY’S