Page 108 - Bonhams September 10 2018 New York Chinese Works of Art

138 W
A PAIR OF LIMESTONE GUARDIAN LIONS
Ming dynasty or earlier
Each carved with a leonine face, framed by a tightly-curled mane Provenance
falling over the back of the well-defined muscular body, seated on Acquired in China in the 1940’s by Captain James Victor Query,
its haunches with tail curled to one side, on a circular plinth, the a United States Navy Rear Admiral in the Asia-Pacific Theater,
male with wide open mouth and right paw resting on a ‘brocade’ thereafter by descent.
ball incised with florets, the female with fangs bared and left paw
subduing a playful cub, the warmly patinated brown stone with some Captain Query was a recipient of the Yangtze Service Medal and the
white veining. Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal among other commendations for his
26in (66cm) high, including the integral base service in China, which ended in 1950.

$50,000 - 70,000

明或更早 石灰石雕坐獅一對 According to Marianne Hulsbosch, et.al, eds. Asian Material Culture,
Amsterdam University Press, 2010, p. 109, lions were first presented
to the Han court by emissaries from Central Asia and Persia. With
the introduction of Buddhism from India, the lion acquired mythical
qualities through Buddhist symbolism, and by the sixth century
AD were already popularly depicted as guardian figures, always
presented in pairs, as in the present lot.

The male lion traditionally positioned on the right, sits open-mouthed
with its right front paw resting on a brocade ball, while the female sits
to the left with mouth nearly shut and left paw clasped protectively
around a cub. Some believe that in an imperial context, the ball
represents the earth while the cub represents nurturing, thereby
symbolizing the emperor’s dominion over his lands, and his care for
his subjects.

The open and closed mouths of the male and female represent the
Sanskrit vowels a and um, being the first and last of the vowels
respectively, and which when put together form the sound om which
expresses the absolute or ultimate reality in the Sanskrit mantra. This
ties in with the male representing yang, and the female yin, together
representing the totality of all things.

The narrow heads of the present lot is reminiscent of Tang dynasty
models, such as the one sold in these rooms, 19 March 2018, lot
8161, and another in the collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum
of Art illustrated in Bradley Smith and Weng Wango, China: A
History in Art, New York, 1979, p. 118. The cub and brocade ball
beneath the lions’ paws make their appearance around the 10th
century, as in a Song dynasty wood example in the collection of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, accession no. 28.187.1.,
and a Five dynasties Yaozhou celadon example of a male lion with a
ball beneath its paw, sold at Sotheby’s, Hong Kong, 5 Apr 2017, lot
3214. By the Ming dynasty, the iconography of the male lion with a
ball and the female with a cub, had become firmly established.