Page 36 - Christies Japanese and Korean Art Sept 22 2020 NYC

PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT PRIVATE COLLECTION
19
A CARVED WOOD FIGURE OF GUARDIAN KING Buddhist law. Clad in armor, they stand at the four corners of a
HEIAN PERIOD (11TH CENTURY) Buddhist altar, protecting the principal image. Each represents one
of the four cardinal directions.
Carved from cypress wood in single-block technique (ichiboku-zukuri)
as the Guardian King shown in Chinese armor standing in a frontal The forceful face, scowling Jikokuten or Zochoten, stamping on
pose on top of a defeated demon. The right arm is bent and rests
forcefully on the right hip; the left arm is raised to hold a trident, a hapless, squirming demon, is the guardian of the east or south.
now missing. His forceful expression matches the defiant energy of His right hip thrusts to the side to suggest the possibility of forceful
his pose, heightened by the drapery extending off the wrist and down movement. He holds his weapon in his raised right hand. The
from the shoulder. swirling drapery of his sleeves and the thick train hanging down
49º in. (125 cm.) high behind are deeply undercut in the bold fashion of Heian style. His
exotic Chinese armor is carved with elaborate detail. A distinctive
$80,000-120,000 feature is the animal-mask buckle, sinking its teeth into the rolled
sash at the waist.
PROVENANCE:
Setsu Gatodo, Tokyo, 31 October 1969. The aggressive stance and grimacing demeanor are standard for
these guardians, whose mission is to ward off evil.
For a similar work in the collection of the Asian Art Museum of
San Francisco, see The Art of Japan - Masterpieces in the Asian Art
Museum of San Francisco (San Francisco: Asian Art Museum, 1991),
p. 31.