A RARE STUCCO PANEL OF A LADY SONG / JIN DYNASTY

of rectangular form, exquisitely rendered with a youthful female head, possibly a Bodhisattva, the figure adorned with a billowing elaborated headdress with gilded gesso highlights, depicted with thick coiled hair with tresses in front of the ears, the plump face accentuated with pursed stylised lips and elongated, almond-shaped eyes, framed and glazed

The panel is framed and glazed (not inspected outside the frame). It is in its fragmentary condition as visible on the photo and original to the time of its collection. The pigment remains very fresh. There are cracks and losses to the surface and along the edges, all expected and consistent with age. There do not appear to have been any recent retouching or repaints for at least the past 50 years and the panel would benefit from a professional stabilisation and reframing.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

This remarkably lively painting stands in the tradition of Buddhist imagery, best known from wall paintings and silks from around the Tang dynasty (618-907) preserved in the Dunhuang cave temples of Gansu province, which lived on particularly in North China in the Song (960-1279), Jin (1115-1234) and early Ming (1368-1644) periods in form of temple frescoes. The technique of using gilded gesso relief highlights is already found in the Mogao Grottoes of Dunhuang, and became popular for Song dynasty wooden sculptures and Jin dynasty wall paintings.

While in religious paintings the main deities tend to be depicted in a controlled, serene manner, secondary figures surrounding them can have a vibrant immediacy, as seen in the present image, which is rarely encountered in Chinese secular art. The young girl, characterised as such by her hairstyle, with thick coiled, tied-up tresses in front of the ears, is rendered in an exquisite, crisp painting style with sharp, determined brush strokes, softened by graduated shading. The smooth, fleshy face shows exaggerated chubby cheeks and chin, where the skin forms soft folds, stylised lips elegantly pursed like a flower, gleaming pupils set in elongated, almond-shaped eyes with narrow ‘bags’ below and well-shaped arched brows above, one of which forms a continuous line with the ridge of the nose.

For a secular counterpart to the present image in a Song dynasty literati painting, rendered in a much more subdued style, compare the depiction of a woman in a hanging scroll by Li Song (fl. ca. 1190 – ca. 1230), with a similar, but less exaggerated fleshy face with chubby chin, eyebrow and nose also forming a curved line, the hair similarly adorned with pearls; the painting, executed in ink and colours on silk, is preserved in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Shinu hua zhi mei/Glimpses into the Hidden Quarters: Paintings of Women from the Middle Kingdom, Taipei, 1988, pl. 10.

Women with similar hair style and stylised pursed lips, but rendered in a coarser and more basic style, are depicted in murals from the Five Dynasties’ (907-960) tomb of Wang Chuzhi in Quyang county, illustrated in Wudai Wang Chuzhi mu/Wang Chuzhi’s Tomb of the Five Dynasties Period, Beijing, 1998, pls 17 and 21, and again in Hebei gudai muzang bihua gaishu/The Wall Paintings in the Ancient Tombs in Hebei Province, Beijing, 2000, pls. 78 and 80. Female donors depicted in Dunhuang cave paintings of similar date also appear to wear their hair in a similar manner, see one dated to the 4th year of Jianlong in the Northern Song dynasty, equivalent to AD 963, another attributed to the mid-10th century, both illustrated in the exhibition catalogue by Roderick Whitfield and Anne Farrar, Caves of the Thousand Buddhas. Chinese art from the Silk Route, The British Museum, London, 1990, cat. nos. 19A and 20.