Page 79 - Sotheby's New York Chinese Jade Auction September 13, 2018

Damo in China, Daruma in Japan and Bodhidharma in India,
whose teachings eventually became the foundation of Chan (Zen)
Buddhism. Damo is often depicted standing barefoot on a reed
leaf, representing the episode when he crossed the Yangtze River
in this manner to evade pursuers. But here he is shown seated in
contemplation in a cave, referring to the nine years Damo spent in
a cave, facing a wall and meditating. The inscription carved on the
cliff face above is an imperial poem by Emperor Qianlong titled
Damo mian bi tu (Meditation of Damo), which aptly describes the
scene (Fig.1). This representation is also seen in Dehua fgures of
Damo, where he is shown seated on a mat with his robe pulled
around him in a manner similar to that of the present fgure. These
Dehua fgures include one in The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York, illustrated by Denise P. Leidy, Donna Strahan, et
al., Wisdom Embodied, Chinese Buddhist and Daoist Sculpture in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2010, p. 162, and another
sold at Christie’s New York, 20 March 2014, lot 162.
The present carving is related to other jade carvings that show
a luohan seated in a grotto or carved in the side of a mountain.
Carvings of this type are often of late Ming or early Qing date.
Jessica Rawson in Chinese Jade from the Neolithic to the Qing, London,
1995, pp. 410-11, notes that these carvings may have been inspired
by a woodblock print in the eighteenth-century catalogue, Gu yu
tu pu, illustrated p. 411, fg. 2, where a luohan (possibly Damo) is
shown seated on a mat in a setting of rocks and clouds. Rawson
goes on to mention the “close relationship” of these jade carvings
to the painting tradition that showed luohans “who retreated to
meditate in mountainous landscapes.” These paintings sometimes
included an inscription commenting on the scene, a practice that
most likely infuenced the jade carvers who sometimes included an
inscription on a smooth rock face of the mountainside.

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