A STONE RELIEF OF 'CONFUCIUS AND LAOZI' HAN DYNASTY

the grey limestone square slab section carved in recessed relief on the vertically-grooved ground with the two sages - Confucius on the right and Laozi on the left, both dressed in voluminous robes fastened at the waist by ribbons and caps on their heads, their faces detailed with almond-shaped eyes and straight noses above wispy beards, next to a smaller-scaled standing horse and groom, all enclosed in the upper left section of an architectural niche framed by a band of bunting on the lintel above 

Acquired between the 1950s and 60s.

The present stone relief is carved with the famous scene of Confucius meeting the ‘Old Master’ of Daoism, Laozi. Confucius may be seen on the right, depicted slightly shorter than the figure next to him, Laozi, with his body faintly bent forward in a gesture of humility.. Behind Laozi is his horse led by a groom. This legendary encounter is said to have taken place when Laozi was the keeper of the imperial archives at the royal court of Zhou (1046-256 BC). At the time, Confucius was seeking answers to his questions on customs, rituals and rights and had travelled to meet Laozi. According to accounts in the Zhuangzi, at this meeting Laozi blamed Confucius for his pride and ambition. Confucius was so impressed that he compared Laozi to a dragon that remains un-trappable and rises to the sky riding on the winds and clouds.

The treatment of the figures on this wall fragment is characteristic of the period when the size of figures and animals depended on their social rank and importance in the composition with little attention paid to anatomical correctness. See a stone engraving from Shandong province, attributed to the 1st century AD, engraved with this much favoured subject, illustrated in Martin J. Powers, Art and Political Expression in Early China, New Haven and London, 1991, p. 149, pl. 8, now in the Shandong Provincial Museum, Ji’nan.

For examples of Han dynasty stone reliefs carved in a related style see two in the collection of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, discussed and illustrated in Thomas Lawton, ‘Two Han Funerary Reliefs’, Oriental Art, vol. VI, no. 3, 1960, pp. 90-96; and a grey stone frieze, from the collection of the J.T. Tai Foundation, sold in our New York rooms, 3rd June 1985, lot 30, depicting a procession of equestrian figures accompanying horse-drawn carriages. Further stone wall fragments are illustrated in Kandai no bijutsu[Arts of the Han dynasty], Osaka, 1975, pl. 287-293; and rubbings from stones of the famous Wu Family site were included in the exhibition Arts of the Han Dynasty, Asia House, New York, 1961, cat. no. 91, and in Cary Y. Liu, Michael Nylan, Anthony Barbieri-Low, et al., Recarving China's Past: Art, Archaeology, and Architecture of the "Wu Family Shrines",  New Haven, 2005.