작품 상세

A clay figure of a lady seated on her heels and dressed in a long robe, the hands covered by the sleeves. The hair is arranged in two buns above her ears. Remains of pigments. Wooden base. Some losses. Early 8th century. Mounted on a perspex base. On the basis of size, material, construction and style this figure must once have been part of one of the tableaux in the first floor of the pagoda of Hôryûji near Nara, one of the earliest and most important Buddhist temples in Japan. The four tableaux consist of groups of figures arranged into a narrative scene illustrating important events in the history of Buddhism: the parinirvana of Shakyamuni (north), the debate between the layman Vimalakirti and the bodhisattva Manjushri (east), a landscape representing the Tushita Pure Land of Maitreya (south), and the scattering of Shakyamuni's ashes (west). The pagoda was constructed in the late 7th to early 8th century, and the tableaux are believed to date to around 711. The figure now coming up for sale probably represents a mourner at the parinirvana or a member of the audience at the debate between Vimalakirti and Manjushri. Many Buddhist temples were forced to close down and sell their treasures in the social turmoil of the early Meiji period. But Hôryûji remained relatively unscathed. In 1876 it sold over 300 objects to the Imperial Household in Tokyo and the money was used for much needed repairs. Other objects from temples in similar need of restoration found their way onto the art market. Tamai Kyûjirô had his shop Taikandô in close vicinity to Hôryûji. German collectors such as Adolf Fischer in 1910 and 1911 and Ernst Grosse in 1909 and 1910 called on this dealer and bought from him. A number of figures from the Hôryûji tableaux were apparently deaccessioned in the early years of the 20th century. One of them is known to be in the collection of the Tokyo geijutsu daigaku daigaku bijutsukan (Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music) (published in: Bijutsu Kenkyû, Nr. LXXXII (October 1938), plate VIII). Others found their way to the West such as the figure of a kneeling woman acquired from Mayuyama in Tokyo, today in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd (Inv.-Nr. 1979.200), published in: A Passion for Asia, The Rockefeller Legacy, New York 2006, S. 181.