Page 76 - 2021 March 15th Fine Chinese Paintings and Works of Art, Bonhams NYC New York

PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION
OF JAMES AND MARILYNN ALSDORF
79
A RARE BLACK STONE FIGURE OF MAITREYA The third format, represented by the Alsdorf Maitreya, maintains the
Northern Wei Dynasty, Longmen Caves, 5th/6th Century legs crossed at the ankles but the right had raised palm-outward
The slender figure depicted as an Indian prince, a tall crown rising in a gesture of reassurance. However there is some disagreement
above his smiling face with angular features, a flat necklace around his as to whether this pose is limited to Maitreya. Denise Patry Leidy
neck and a long scarf that falls downward from his narrow shoulders discusses the problem in relation to two majestic painted sandstone
to frame the upper hem of his dhoti secured with a bow-tied sash, images from late 5th century caves at Yungang, Shanxi: the larger
the sharply-cut folds of the material cascading across and around his image from Cave 25 (cat. no. 3a, 57 ½ in. [146.1 cm.] high) with
pendant legs crossed at the ankles as he sits with his right hand raised a seated Amitabha Buddha to the front of his crown considered
palm-outward in a gesture of reassurance (abhayamudra) and his as probably the bodhisattva Guanyin, while the undecorated
lowered left hand holding an object balanced on his knee. crown on the slightly smaller image possibly meant as Maitreya
17 1/4in (44cm) high (cat. no. 3b 51 in. [129.5 cm.] high) : see Denise Patry Leidy and
Donna Strahan, Wisdom Embodied: Chinese Buddhist and Daoist
$70,000 - 100,000 Sculpture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2010,
pp. 53-56. However a dark grey bodhisattva also in the collection
of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (39.190, Fletcher Fund), with
北魏 五/六世紀 交腳菩薩石像 龍門石窟 pose similar to the Alsdorf figure but seated between two lions, is
considered as possibly Maitreya, datable to the early sixth century
Provenance and probably from the Guyang cave site in the Longmen complex
C. T. Loo (Frank Caro, successor), New York, 22 September 1953 (see p. 169, cat. no A2).

來源 For other sculptures of similar size and pose comparable to the
蘆芹齋 (Frank Caro)，紐約，1953年9月22日 Alsdorf figure, see the bodhisattva, identified as Maitreya, with
his hand raised in abhayamudra (24 in. [61 cm.] high) from the
Longmen complex acquired by the Art Museum of the University
The Northern Wei dynasty was a period of political turbulence and of Pennsylvania in 1940 from Yamanaka & Company: www.penn.
intense social and cultural change. The messianic figure of Maitreya museum/collections/object/208586. The site from which the relief
was believed to return to earth to preach the dharma once the teachings was taken supposedly had a dedicatory inscription corresponding
of the historical Buddha have been forgotten in those troubled times to 512. Also of note is the seated bodhisattva in the collection of the
and to bring a new era of peace. The popularity of Maitreya among Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (B60S573, The Avery Brundage
Buddhist patrons inspired arresting images in various poses. One format Collection, 22 ¾ in. [57.8cm] high), originally published in the 1974
displays his right leg crossed over the left knee, the right arm raised with catalog Chinese, Korean and Japanese Sculpture in the Avery
one hand touching the cheek of his head leaning slightly in the same Brundage Collection. However photographs now available on the
direction, as documented in the stone Maitreya sold in our New York website show both the thinness of relief and the reinforcement on the
rooms, 19 March 2018, lot 8028. A second variation in the format has reverse of possible fragments, comparable to the Alsdorf sculpture
the figure of Maitreya with his pendant legs crossed at the ankles and and other examples, that occurred with their removal from the
his head leaning slightly downward to rest on the hand of his raised left Longmen site in the early years of the 20th century.
arm: see the Maitreya of dark grey stone characteristic of the Longmen
caves in Henan, dated to the early sixth century, from the collection of
the Albright Knox Gallery sold, at Sotheby’s, 19-20 March 2007, lot 503
(23 3/8 in. [59cm] high).

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