Page 106 - Sotheby's Asian Art PARIS, December 10, 2019

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RARE DIVINITÉ EN BRONZE PARTIELLEMENT DORÉ
E
XI -XII SIÈCLE
E
représenté de profil en pleine course, tenant dans ses
deux mains des attributs, la tête féroce coiffée de deux
cornes et la gueule béante, socle
12,8 cm (avec le socle), 5 in. (with the base)
This remarkable figure is cast in a highly dramatic and
vivacious pose. He seems to be running, with one leg on
the ground and the other raised behind him, his right arm
raised high and his left arm before him. His head is turned
up and backwards contrasting with the direction his
body and legs are moving. His dramatic facial expression
with his bulging eyes and wide open mouth, his furrowed
forehead with two stubby pointed horns, complements
the dynamic pose.
Iconographically, this figure may represent the polestar
deity Kui Xing, one of a host of embodied stars who is
sometimes associated with the North Star, compare a
small gilt-bronze figure of Kui Xing, dated to the Tang
dynasty and in the Seattle Museum of Art, illustrated
in Hai-Wai Yi-Chen. Chinese Art in Overseas Collections.
Buddhist Sculpture, Taipei, 1990, p. 128, fig. 12, and also
a bronze figure of Kui Xing dated to the Ming dynasty
in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in
New York, published in Denise Patry Leidy and Donna
Strahan, Wisdom Embodied. Chinese Buddhist and Daoist
Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
2010, cat. no. 42.
In his facial expression, this figure may also be related
to a small figure of the Guardian of the East, attributed
to the Dali Kingdom and dated to the 11th/12th century,
also in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
published ibid., cat. no. 31. Furthermore, the patinated
bronze of the present parcel-gilt figure shows a similar
orange-brown patina to the figure of the Guardian of the
East. Metallurgical analyses carried out on bronze figures
from the Dali Kingdom by Paul Jett, Senior Conservator
in the Freer Gallery and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery,
Smithsonian Institutions, Washington D.C., have revealed
significant traces of arsenic, which gives the metal its
characteristic colour, see Paul Jett, ‘Technologische
Studie zu den vergoldeten Guanyin-Figuren aus dem Dali-
Königreich’, Der Goldschatz der drei Pagoden, Zurich, 1991,
pp. 68-74.
A rare partial gilt-bronze figure of a deity, 11th/12th century

‡ 12 000-18 000 €
105 000-157 000 HK$ 13 400-20 100 US$
十一至十二世紀 鎏金銅魁星踢斗立像

104 ARTS D’ASIE