Page 8 - 2021 March 15th Fine Chinese Paintings and Works of Art, Bonhams NYC New York

PROPERTY OF A NEW ENGLAND COLLECTOR Far more common amongst funerary-furnishing survivals are the non-
organic and less perishable pottery figures and vessels. It is therefore
1 quite unusual to find wood figurines that have survived the vicissitudes
A PAIR OF RARE LARGE PAINTED WOOD FIGURES of burial and time. Particularly those buried in the 4th century BCE.
Eastern Zhou Dynasty (4th Century BCE) And how extraordinarily modern in our eyes do these sculptures
Elagantly but simply carved as standing attendants, most likely female, appear today? Such figurines were placed symbolically in burial tombs
each with a large oval ‘Brancusi-like’ modernist head with large and to serve the deceased on their difficult spirit journey. They can also
striking scooped-out ovals to each side of the face topped by arched be seen as a form of ancestor worship, so crucial a part of Confucian
brows, two large black-painted almond-shaped staring eyes centered philosophy and the duties of filial piety.
by a slender nose bridge with triangular tip, a simple down-turned
crescent incised for the mouth with traces of red pigment, each For another tall (23 1/2 inches high) painted wood figure dated to
missing one of the large ears pierced for earrings, traces of painted the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, circa 3rd Century BC, and also displaying
robes in red, black and earthy-beige pigments to the ribboned and simple but powerful geometric facial features, see J.J. Lally & Co.
hemmed garments that show traces of double-tied-sashes with Oriental Art, Two Thousand Years of Chinese Sculpture, New York,
circular bi-like discs attached down the narrow sides and a simple 2008, no. 2, where the author cites others from that group that were
red-pigment band below the shoulders on the backs, the robes fall discovered in Changsha, Hunan in 1936 at sites associated with the
gracefully in a gently spreading cone from the high-waisted bust to ancient state of Chu and first shown in the United States at the Yale
the hems at their feet, each with rounded shoulders and out-curving University of Fine Arts and published in the catalogue, An Exhibition of
slender arms with square mortise holes carved to accept separate Chinese Antiquities from Ch’ang-sha: Lent by John Hadley Cox, New
hands, losses. Haven, 1939.
28in (71cm) high (2).
For another figure, see Eskenazi, Early Chinese Art: 8th Century-9th
Century AD, June-July, 1995, pp. 86-87, no. 45. Their example bears
$3,500 - 4,500 a quite obvious black-checked pattern to the clothing (mostly lacking
in ours) that relates to a group of wood figures from a tomb of the
東周 木俑一對 State of Chu, Wuchangyidi, in Jiangling, Hubei, which are also painted
with long strings of jade beads and pendants (which ours display),
Provenance see Teng Rensheng, Lacquer Wares of the Chu Kingdom, Hong
Renzo Freschi Oriental Art, Milan, Italy, 2008 Kong, 1992, p. 109, figs 32:1-4. See also a fascinating line drawing
of pectoral and girdle ornaments on wooden figures from Chu tombs
Literature at Xinyang, Henan province and Jiangling, Hubei province, illustrated
Renzo Freschi Oriental Art, Miti e Riti (Myths and Rituals), Milan, 2008 in China 5000 Years, Innovation and Transformation in the Arts,
Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1998p. 64, fig. 12.
來源
Renzo Freschi Oriental Art, 意大利米蘭, 2008年 For a pair of much smaller figures (15 1/2in high) dated to the
Western Han Dynasty, see J.J. Lally & Co., Ancient Chinese Ceramics
出版 and Tomb Sculptures, New York, 2000, no. 10, where they cite
Renzo Freschi Oriental Art, Miti e Riti (Myths and Rituals), 米蘭, 2008年 another pair of wood figures excavated from a Western Han tomb in
Maojiayuan, Jiangling county, Hubei province that were also included in
the exhibition Lacquerware from the Warring States to the Han Periods
Excavated in Hubei Province, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Art
Gallery, 1994, no. 82.

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