Page 50 - 2019 September 10th Sotheby's Important Chinese Art Junkunc Collection

209 AN EXCEPTIONALLY RARE GILT-BRONZE FIGURE OF LAOJUN
TANG DYNASTY
唐 銅鎏金老君坐像

finely cast seated cross-legged with a tripod armrest encircling the front half of the torso, wearing a small scholar’s cap, the
face with a sincere expression and a pointed beard, the body clothed in an interior garment tied at the chest, with an outer
robe open and hanging in creased folds, the hands atop the armrest and the proper right hand holding a fan, all supported on
an integral waisted octagonal base
Height 3¾ in., 9.7 cm

$ 50,000-70,000

PROVENANCE 來源
Nagatani Inc., Chicago, 2nd November 1953. Nagatani Inc.，芝加哥，1953年11月2日
Collection of Stephen Junkunc, III (d. 1978). 史蒂芬•瓊肯三世（1978年逝）收藏

The present figure, portrayed with a full beard and a distinctive hat, holding a fan in his right hand, while his left arm
rests on a three-legged armrest, appears to depict Laojun or Daode Tianzun (Celestial Worthy of the Way and Its
Virtue), one of the three highest Gods in the Daoist pantheon, together with Yuanshi Tianjun (Celestial Venerable of
the Primordial Beginning) and Lingbao Tianzun (Celestial Lord of the Spiritual Treasures), forming the Three Purities.

In Daoist beliefs, Laojun incarnated as the renowned Chinese philosopher Laozi to advocate Daoism. While the
first mention of Laozi is found in the Shiji (Records of Historians) by Sima Qian, depictions of the deity in sculptural
form did not appear until the 2nd and 3rd century AD. It is also in this period that Laozi began to be regarded as the
central deity of the cosmos. The collapse of the Han dynasty had a great impact on the development of Daoism, as
it turned from a philosophical current into a religion with a specific set of beliefs and practices. The transformation
is attributed in part to the spiritual leader Zhang Daoling, who lived during the Eastern Han dynasty, and claimed to
have had a revelation of the deified Laozi who ordered him to organize his devotees into a movement, which later
came to be known as the Tianshi Dao (The Way of the Celestial Masters).

Compare two similar gilt-bronze Daoist figures from the Tang dynasty, each modeled with the same full beard, hat
and three-legged armrest, illustrated in Saburo Matsubara, Chinese Buddhist Sculpture. A Study Based on Bronze
and Stone Statues other than from Cave Temples, Tokyo, 1966, p. 312, figs. c and d. See also a stone figure of Laozi,
similarly depicted and also holding a fan, attributed to the Tang dynasty, in the Museum of East Asian Art, Cologne,
exhibited in Taoism and the Arts of China, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 2000, cat. no. 39; and two stone steles,
each carved with Tianzun portrayed in a similar manner in the middle flanked by two attendants, one dated by
inscription to the 2nd year of Linde, corresponding to 665, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the other dated either
to 694 or 703, in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., published in Osvald Sirén, Chinese Sculpture from the
Fifth to the Fourteenth Century, vol. III, New York, 1925, pls. 386A and B.

本坐像頭頂戴冠，面作重鬚，右手執扇，左臂擱於三腳几 見兩尊唐代銅鎏金道教造像近例，鬚髯、頭冠和三腳几款
上，為老君像，又稱道德天尊，是道教最高尊神之一，與 式相同，載於松原三郎，《中國仏教彫刻史研究：特に
元始天尊、靈寶天尊合稱「三清」。 金銅仏及び石窟造像以外の石仏についての論考》，東
京，1966年，頁312，圖c及d。另可參考一老子石像，
道教認為先秦思想家老子為老君化身，下凡弘顯道法。關 造型類近，同樣手執寶扇，應為唐代所作，科隆東亞藝術
於老子的記載最早可追溯至司馬遷所著的《史記》，老君 博物館藏，曾見於芝加哥美術館展覽《Taoism and the
以造像形式出現則要到公元二至三世紀；同一時期，老子 Arts of China》，2000年，編號39。另有石龕兩例，
被尊為天地元氣祖宗。漢室傾頹，道家從一思想流派演變 中央各刻外形相似的天尊像，其中一例紀麟德二年，即
成宗教，發展出教義和戒律。此一演變，不離東漢張道陵 公元665年，波士頓美術館藏，另外一例紀年694或703
天師所為，他自稱太上老君親降，命其廣召弟子，創立教 年，華盛頓弗瑞爾美術館藏，載於喜仁龍，《Chinese
派，即後世所稱的「天師道」。 Sculpture from the Fifth to the Fourteenth Century》
，卷III，紐約，1925年，圖版386A及B。

48 JUNKUNC: ARTS OF ANCIENT CHINA II