A very rare 'Dehua' figure of Laozi, by Lin Chaojing, 17th century

The present figure is a rare delight. Intricately rendered with a serene expression, flowing beard and gently draping robes that tread the line between the aethereal and the realist, this seated figure is one of but a handful of surviving examples attributed to master potter Lin Chaojing.

Depicting a Daoist Immortal – likely Laozi himself – sat in quiet contemplation, the present figure is of an extremely rare subject matter rarely preserved in Dehua porcelain. Indeed, of the almost four thousand Dehua pieces analyzed by Liu Youzheng in his comprehensive study Zhongguo Dehua baici yanjiu / Blanc de Chine, Beijing, 2007, only around five hundred could confidently be classified as Daoist and far fewer bearing any resemblance to the present figure: compare three related, though quite dissimilar, bearded Daoist figures included in the study, op. cit., col. pls 36-38, the first being a representation of the drunken Li Bai (of He Chaozong mark) with closely related facial hair fading into the poet’s bare chest. To date, only one other figure of Laozi of this serene style appears to be published, illustrated with some damage sustained to the head and extremities in Geng Dongsheng, Ming Qing Dehua baici [Ming and Qing Dehua porcelain], Guangxi, 2014, pl. 36.

A leading member of the famous Lin Family, active in Dehua in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, Lin Chaojing was likely a contemporary of He Chaozong and his achievements are similarly celebrated in the Quanzhou fu zhi [Gazetteer of Quanzhou Prefecture] of 1612. While in many ways comparable to He’s work in terms of quality, the figures of Lin Chaojing tend to possess a more transcendental, almost wistful, quality unmatched by his contemporaries– with robes gathering in casual curves at the figures’ feet, their large eyes heavy with contemplation. Compare two other figures bearing Lin Chaojing marks, illustrated in P. J. Donnelly’s seminal work on the topic, Blanc de Chine, London, 1968, pls 140c and 140d: the first depicting a recumbent Guanyin, preserved in the Percival David Collection at the British Museum, London (accession no. PDF.476); the second, from the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, depicting a seated Damo (Bodhidharma) with particularly expressive facial hair and eyebrows; and a third depicting a seated Guanyin, sold at Christie’s New York, 18th March 2016, lot 1608.