Figure of Buddha, carved ivory with traces of vermilion and gilt, China, Song-Yuan dynasties, 1200-1350

Ivory head and torso of the Buddha, arms missing, draped with a cloth with incised decoration of swastikas and flowers enclosed by parallel bands around the waist and shoulders, leaving the breast bare. Traces of vermilion, gilding and black on the cloth, breast and head. The shoulders slotted for arms, the back of the head unevenly broken off.

Given by the National Art-Collections Fund

The figure was exhibited by Spink & Son at the Exhibition of Chinese Art in Berlin, 1929 (see Catalogue, no. 667 with illustration).

Note by Craig Clunas 19th July 1984: This piece was excluded from the exhibition Chinese Ivories from the Shang to the Qing (BM/OCS 1984) by Derek Gillman, responsible for the selection of figure carvings, who judged it to be a modern piece on the grounds of its dissimilarity to the established late Ming Zhangzhou type ivory carving. Compare however the carving in similar style in the Freer Gallery (16.159), tested by radio-carbon dating to 320+/-90 years before the present. W.T. Chase, 'Examination of art objects in the Freer Gallery laboratory'. Arts Orientalis IX, 1973. pp. 79-88, p. 81, pl. 6.

Revised scientific standards for calibrating the results of radiocarbon tests suggest a date of between 1440 and 1660 for the tusk itself of the object at the National Museum of Asian Art (F1916.159a-c). A few scholars still disagree about the date of this Buddha. According to Jan Stuart and Chang Qing, the V&A object's dating to between 1200 and 1350 based on a slight Tibetan cast to the figure is not persuasive. The Tibetan features of the Freer's Buddha are so fully assimilated that a date of circa 1450-1550 seems likely, and scientific evidence supports this conclusion. See Jan Stuart, Chang Qing. Chinese Buddhist Sculpture in a New Light at the Freer Gallery of Art. vol. 32, no. 4 Hong Kong, April 2002. p. 36, fig. 11. (RB 14/07/2022)

Opinion of Wu T'ung (Boston) 15/6/1989: Sculpted 3.0 qualities like Yuan. Natural handling of drapery folds, facial quality strong, not like sweet Ming. Floral decoration on robes like that on textiles excavated from a tomb at Huangshan, Fujian, Pei Jia, Hua Hang. 13th century Song-Yuan.

Revised carbon-14 dating of a similar ivory figure in Freer Gallery of Art suggests between 1440 and 1660 (Orientations April 2002).

A.203-1929