A RARE AND SUPERBLY CARVED LARGE BLACK STONE FIGURE OF A LION TANG DYNASTY |

depicted seated on its haunches atop a rectangular base with a tail naturalistically swept against its side, the beast portrayed with its mouth open in a roar and baring its teeth, below bulging eyes and pricked ears, the back of its head with tufts of mane ending in upcurled ends, its body flanked on the sides with prominently defined ribs and accentuated with a broad chest below its upheld head, the stone patinated to a glossy ebony sheen

Collection of Arthur M. Sackler (1913-1987).
Christie's New York, 1st December 1994, lot 164.

This stone lion is remarkable for its sensitive rendering: its mane is skillfully carved with tight curls, the muscular body exudes the animal’s powerful and nimble nature, while its ferociousness is immediately sensed through the gaping mouth that reveals the animal’s teeth. This piece marks an important stylistic shift from the more abstract depictions of lions of the preceding Northern Qi (550-577) and Sui (581-618) dynasties, and displays the vigorousness and boldness characteristic of Tang sculptures.  The Tang dynasty saw an unprecedented flowering of the arts, resulting from political and military stability and a general openness to foreign trade. Lions were among the most prized tributary items presented to the Tang court by emissaries from the western regions of India and Central Asia. After receiving a lion as tribute from Samarkand in 635, Emperor Taizong (598-649) is recorded to have commissioned a poem in its honour from the court poet Yu Shinan (558-638). Lions were also sent from Samarkand, Khotan and as far as the Arabian Peninsula.

Tang carvers and artists strived to successfully display the animal’s majestic demeanor, its ferociousness and strength. A description of a lion painting by the 8th century painter Wei Wutian exemplifies this trend: “When foreign countries presented lions to the court, he made paintings of them that were strikingly lifelike. Later, the lions would be returned to their homes, and only their paintings were kept; even so, whenever the pictures were unrolled, any other animal that caught sight of them would be terrified” (Alexander C. Soper, ‘T’ang Ch’ao Ming Hua Lu: Celebrated Painters of the T’ang Dynasty, by Chu Chung-hsuan of T’ang”, Artibus Asiae, XXI, 1958, p. 217).

At the Tang court the lion was revered for its strength and spiritual essence, and depictions of lions functioned as guardian figures and emblems of power. The Han dynasty tradition of placing pairs of lions at tomb sites had been largely abandoned during the Northern Qi period, but was reintroduced under the Tang. Large stone lions are found at the imperial Tang tombs; see for example a larger standing lion similarly rendered with protruding ribs, from the tomb of Emperor Taizong, now in the Shaanxi Provincial Museum, Xi’an, illustrated in Ann Paludan, The Chinese Spirit Road, New Haven, 1991, pl. 107.

A fragment of a lion with mouth closed, allegedly from the Longmen caves, Henan province, from the Ono collection, was included in the exhibition Chugoku no Chokoku, Osaka Municipal Museum of Art, Osaka, 2005, cat. no. 10; and another with less refined details, from the collection of Eduard von der Heydt, was included in the exhibition Chinese Sculptures in the von der Heydt Collection, Museum Rietberg, Zurich, 1959, cat. no. 53.