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Lot Essay
This sculpture passed through the hands of one of Japan’s premier art dealers, Mayuyama & Co. in Kyobashi, Tokyo. Mayuyama Matsutaro (1882-1935) founded the company in Peking in 1905 and then moved its headquarters to Tokyo in 1916. The Kannon sculpture, after having been sold by Mayuyama to a Swiss collector in the postwar era, returned to Japan in the early 1980s and entered an important private collection in Tokyo.
Heian-period sculptures, especially of this size, rarely appear on the art market. It is likely a mid-eleventh-century work made in the style of earlier examples.
Kannon, the bodhisattva of mercy, was popular from a very early period. He often holds a lotus flower or water vessel, now lost, in his raised left hand, which is likely a restoration—the armbands and bracelets on the left and right arms do not match. As in early Heian sculptures, the main part of the head and body was carved from a single block of wood, revealing the beautiful grain of the wood. In early works, the modeling of the body and drapery was accentuated by the rolling-wave drapery folds (hompa-shiki), with roundly carved large waves alternating with sharply edged small waves. By the mid-eleventh century, those features are softened and flattened: the honpa-shiki folds between the legs in the sculpture shown here are less pronounced. The lingering influence of the tenth century can be found in the fleshy chest and stomach. However, the smaller size of the head and somewhat benign expression, as well as the two-dimensional drapery and the highly attenuated lower torso indicate a date no earlier than the mid-eleventh century. A site with many standing bodhisattvas of similar date is Rakuya-ji Temple in Shiga prefecture.
Dramatic in scale, this elegant and graceful Kannon, with its slight contrapposto stance hinting at movement, and the suggestion of a smile, is quite irresistible.
Heian-period sculptures, especially of this size, rarely appear on the art market. It is likely a mid-eleventh-century work made in the style of earlier examples.
Kannon, the bodhisattva of mercy, was popular from a very early period. He often holds a lotus flower or water vessel, now lost, in his raised left hand, which is likely a restoration—the armbands and bracelets on the left and right arms do not match. As in early Heian sculptures, the main part of the head and body was carved from a single block of wood, revealing the beautiful grain of the wood. In early works, the modeling of the body and drapery was accentuated by the rolling-wave drapery folds (hompa-shiki), with roundly carved large waves alternating with sharply edged small waves. By the mid-eleventh century, those features are softened and flattened: the honpa-shiki folds between the legs in the sculpture shown here are less pronounced. The lingering influence of the tenth century can be found in the fleshy chest and stomach. However, the smaller size of the head and somewhat benign expression, as well as the two-dimensional drapery and the highly attenuated lower torso indicate a date no earlier than the mid-eleventh century. A site with many standing bodhisattvas of similar date is Rakuya-ji Temple in Shiga prefecture.
Dramatic in scale, this elegant and graceful Kannon, with its slight contrapposto stance hinting at movement, and the suggestion of a smile, is quite irresistible.