Page 44 - SOTHEBYS MARCH 18 AND 19 2025

135

PROPERTY FROM A DISTINGUISHED EAST COAST PRIVATE 十七世紀 林朝景作德化白釉老子坐像
COLLECTION
《林朝景印》款
A VERY RARE ‘DEHUA’ FIGURE OF LAOZI, BY
LIN CHAOJING, 17TH CENTURY
the back impressed with a four-character seal mark reading
Lin Chaojing yin (Seal of Lin Chaojing)
Height 9⅛ in., 23.3 cm
The present figure is a rare delight. Intricately rendered with
a serene expression, flowing beard and gently draping robes
that tread the line between the aethereal and the realist, this
seated figure is one of but a handful of surviving examples
attributed to master potter Lin Chaojing.
Depicting a Daoist Immortal – likely Laozi himself – sat in
quiet contemplation, the present figure is of an extremely rare
subject matter rarely preserved in Dehua porcelain. Indeed,
of the almost four thousand Dehua pieces analyzed by Liu
Youzheng in his comprehensive study Zhongguo Dehua baici
yanjiu / Blanc de Chine, Beijing, 2007, only around five hundred
could confidently be classified as Daoist and far fewer bearing
any resemblance to the present figure: compare three related,
though quite dissimilar, bearded Daoist figures included in the
study, op. cit., col. pls 36-38, the first being a representation
of the drunken Li Bai (of He Chaozong mark) with closely
related facial hair fading into the poet’s bare chest. To date,
only one other figure of Laozi of this serene style appears to be
published, illustrated with some damage sustained to the head
and extremities in Geng Dongsheng, Ming Qing Dehua baici
[Ming and Qing Dehua porcelain], Guangxi, 2014, pl. 36.
A leading member of the famous Lin Family, active in Dehua
in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, Lin
Chaojing was likely a contemporary of He Chaozong and his
achievements are similarly celebrated in the Quanzhou fu zhi
[Gazetteer of Quanzhou Prefecture] of 1612. While in many
ways comparable to He’s work in terms of quality, the figures
of Lin Chaojing tend to possess a more transcendental, almost
wistful, quality unmatched by his contemporaries– with robes
gathering in casual curves at the figures’ feet, their large eyes
heavy with contemplation. Compare two other figures bearing
Lin Chaojing marks, illustrated in P. J. Donnelly’s seminal
work on the topic, Blanc de Chine, London, 1968, pls 140c
and 140d: the first depicting a recumbent Guanyin, preserved
in the Percival David Collection at the British Museum,
London (accession no. PDF.476); the second, from the Field
Museum of Natural History, Chicago, depicting a seated Damo
(Bodhidharma) with particularly expressive facial hair and
eyebrows; and a third depicting a seated Guanyin, sold at
Christie’s New York, 18th March 2016, lot 1608.
$ 60,000-80,000

84 SOTHEBY’S COMPLETE CATALOGUING AVAILABLE AT SOTHEBYS.COM/N11744 85