Page 128 - Christies Fine Chinese Works of Art March 2016 New York

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A RARE PAINTED STUCCO PANEL OF TWO WOMEN
SONG-YUAN DYNASTY, 13TH-14TH CENTURY

The rectangular panel is painted with two women on a terrace in front of a dramatic sky of
dark clouds that partially obscure the moon.
The standing fgure wears wind-swept robes and swirling scarves, a gilt gesso headdress and
ribbon-tied torque, and is shown with her hands raised as she peers down at the seated young
woman with pearl and feathered ornaments in her hair, who also wears a torque and holds
an ornate vase decorated with a dragon and with dragon head and ring handles which holds
peonies and leafy branches.
59 x 38 in. (150 x 96.5 cm.)

$100,000-150,000

PROVENANCE

Private collection, France, by repute acquired in the 1930s-40s.

The dynamic turbulence of swirling scarves and wind-swept robes recalls mid-eighth century temple
painting style. This ‘fowing water and scudding clouds’ (xingyun liushui) manner, reminiscent of the
Tang hero Wu Daozi, was ideal for painting religious fgures. Unlike earlier modes stressing precise
contours, the whirling spiritual energy of this brushwork gives the impression of qi, or inner life. This
animated style frst found in the Tang dynasty (AD 618-907) continued into the early Ming dynasty. The
use of relief decoration in gilded gesso highlights is seen in the Mogao Grottoes at Dunhuang, and later
in the frescoes of the Daoist pantheon in the Yuan dynasty Yongle Palace in Shanxi province, where
richly attired ‘celestial ladies’ are shown wearing various types of headdresses augmented with gilded
gesso details, such as those illustrated in The Murals in Yongle Palace, 2007, pl. 54, 55, 64, 65, and
elsewhere.

The smooth, round faces of these two fgures are also seen as early as the 10th century, such as that
of a bodhisattva in a fresco at Gaochang, illustrated in The Buddhist Art in Xinjiang Along the Silk Road,
Xinjiang, 2006, p. 141, fg. 7. The facial features of a small, pursed mouth, elegant nose, elongated,
almond-shaped eyes and slender, arched brows of the bodhisattva are also found in the faces of the
present fgures, as are the scarves that swirl around the arms. In the Gaochang fresco the fgure is
identifed as a bodhisattva by the halo that surrounds the head. The present fgures are of a more secular
nature, perhaps representing a court lady and her attendant. Two other frescoes which depict ladies with
similar round faces and facial details, as well as wind-blown scarves or hair ornaments have been sold at
Sotheby’s, one dated Jin-Yuan dynasty, in New York , 22-23 March 1999, lot 341, and one, dated Song-
Jin dynasty, in Hong Kong, 3-4 December 2015, lot 287. Similar faces can also be seen on a large fresco
of Guanyin and two bodhisattvas, Yuan-Ming dynasty, from the Robert H. Ellsworth Collection, sold at
Christie’s New York, 20 March 2015, lot 772.
宋/元 仕女圖壁畫

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