Page 264 - Christie's Asia Week March 2024 Chinese Art

IMPORTANT CHINESE ART INCLUDING THE COLLECTION OF DOROTHY TAPPER GOLDMAN

Another Property
ⱷ1149
A LARGE WELL-CAST GILT-BRONZE FIGURE OF A 明十Ս 十ˑˠ紀 鎏金銅天王⒤像
GUARDIAN KING Ϝ源
MING DYNASTY, 16TH-17TH CENTURY 歐洲私́珍藏
27q in. (70 cm.) high, bronze stand
$200,000-300,000
PROVENANCE:
Private collection, Europe.

This large and finely cast gilt-bronze figure may represent one of the Another related gilt-bronze guardian figure of smaller size (12 1/2 in.
Four Guardian Kings, sworn to protect Buddhism eternally. These high), and shown seated, formerly in the Robert Hatfield Ellsworth
figures were traditionally placed at the cardinal points of the compass Collection, and in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
in Buddhist temples to protect Buddhist deities. is illustrated by Denise Patry Leidy and Donna Strahan in Wisdom
Embodied: Chinese and Daoist Sculpture in The Metropolitan
A standing Guardian King of similar large size (28 in. high) is in Museum of Art, New York, 2010, p. 184, no. A63, where it is dated to
the collection of the Seattle Art Museum, accession no. 33.820, was the 17 century. See also a similar figure sold at Sotheby’s Paris, 11 June
th
included in the Seattle Asian Art Museum exhibition Discovering 2019, lot 29 (one of two), a similar but smaller (12.5 in.) figure sold at
Buddhist Art- Seeking the Sublime, 9 July 2003- 3 June 2005. The Christie’s New York, 23-24 March 2023, lot 1130, and a slightly larger (31
Seattle figure has a similar serene expression, wears similar chain-mail in.) figure from the Alan and Simone Hartman collection which sold at
armor and has similar celestial scarved and billowing ribbons. A slightly Bonhams New York, 14 December 2023, lot 12.
smaller (21 in. high) gilt-bronze standing figure, identified as Weituo and
dated to the Ming dynasty, 16th-17th century, was sold at Christie’s New
York, 24 March 2011, lot 1632.

(detail)
262