Page 82 - Bonhams Fine Chinese Art London Nov. 2019

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A RARE CARVED WOOD HEAD OF A LOKAPALA
Song Dynasty
With wide bulging eyes, the pupils painted, the nose flat with flaring
nostrils, the forehead and eyebrows protruding and mouth close with
lower lip jutting out, covered in coarse cloth with traces of pigment
and lacquer, a strip of cloth with Sanskrit inscription applied across the
dome of the head, stand.
39cm (15 1/4in) high. (2).

£20,000 - 30,000
CNY180,000 - 270,000

宋 木雕天王頭像

Provenance: A & J Speelman Ltd., London, 20 November 1990
John J. Studzinski CBE, London

Published and illustrated: A & J Speelman Ltd., Catalogue, London,
1990, no.10

來源：倫敦古董商，A & J Speelman Ltd.，1990年11月20日
大英帝國司令勳章受勳者John J. Studzinski珍藏

出版著錄：英國倫敦，A & J Speelman Ltd.，《Catalogue》，1990
年，編號10

The present lot is a fine example of realism with exceptionally fine which may be translated as:
carving. The facial features are emphasized by the definition of the
muscles, especially the frown lines between the eye brows and the ‘Worship to all tathāgata, arhats and fully awakens Buddhas; he, he!
nose bridge. Remain, remain! Bind, bind! Hold, hold! Restrain, restrain! O Ūrṇāmaṇi,
svāhā!’
The inscription applied on a strip of cloth over the dome of the
present lokapala’s head reads: Compare with a related example of a stucco luohan with a similar facial
expression, Yuan dynasty, in the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco (ac.
‘ན་མོ་ས་རྭ་ཏ་ཐ་ག་ཏེ་བྷྱོ་ཨ་ར་ཧ་ཏེ་བྷྱོ་ས་མྱག་སཾ་བུད་དེ་བྷྱོ་ཧེ་ཧེ་བྷན་དྷ་བྷན་དྷ་༅་༅་༅་དྷ་ར་....་ཨུར་ཨ་ན་ནི་སཝ་ཧ།་ནམ་ no.B60S319). See also a similar wood head from the Avery Brundage
སརབ༹ཏཐགཏེབྷྱོའརཧདབྷྱ་སམྱཀསམབུདདྷེབྷྱ་༑་ཧེ་ཧེ་བནདྷ་བནདྷ་ཏིཧ་ཏིཧ་དྷརཡ་དྷརཡ་ནིརུནདྷ་ནིརུནདྷ་རམཨི་སབ༹ཧའ’ Collection, illustrated in Chinese, Korean and Japanese Sculptures,
Tokyo, 1974, pl.142. The expressive power of this style of sculpture
produced in the Song dynasty strongly influenced Japanese sculpture
of the Kamakura period (1185-1332).

See a related but later carved wood figure of a luohan, Ming dynasty,
which was sold at Sotheby’s New York, 23 March 2019, lot 1666.

For details of the charges payable in addition to the final Hammer Price of each Lot
80 | BONHAMS please refer to paragraphs 7 & 8 of the Notice to Bidders at the back of the catalogue.