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A PAINTED SOAPSTONE FIGURE OF THE DAOIST IMMORTAL LÜ DONGBIN 18th/19th century image 1
A PAINTED SOAPSTONE FIGURE OF THE DAOIST IMMORTAL LÜ DONGBIN 18th/19th century image 2
A PAINTED SOAPSTONE FIGURE OF THE DAOIST IMMORTAL LÜ DONGBIN 18th/19th century image 3
A PAINTED SOAPSTONE FIGURE OF THE DAOIST IMMORTAL LÜ DONGBIN 18th/19th century image 4
Lot 66

A PAINTED SOAPSTONE FIGURE OF THE DAOIST IMMORTAL LÜ DONGBIN
18th/19th century

14 December 2023, 17:00 EST
New York

US$5,000 - US$7,000

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A PAINTED SOAPSTONE FIGURE OF THE DAOIST IMMORTAL LÜ DONGBIN

18th/19th century
The standing bearded figure holding a flywhisk in his raised left hand, his right hanging by his side and enveloped in his voluminous sleeve, a sword strapped to his back, the hilt visible over his (real) left shoulder, his robes incised and gilt with cloud scrolls, lotus and phoenix roundels and edged with waves, supported on a separate later rockwork base.
13 3/4in (35cm) high of figure; 18in (45.7cm) high overall

Footnotes

十八/十九世紀 壽山石雕呂洞賓立像

Provenance
Roger Keverne, Ltd., London, 2007

Published
Roger Keverne, Fine and Rare Chinese Works of Art and Ceramics, Summer Exhibition, 15 June 2007, London, pp. 132-133, no. 116

來源
倫敦Roger Keverne古董行,2007年

出版
Roger Keverne,Fine and Rare Chinese Works of Art and Ceramics, Summer Exhibition,2007年6月15日,倫敦,頁pp. 132-133,圖版編號116

Lu Dongbin is one of the eight Daoist immortals and is often shown carrying his sword draped over his back. For further reading see Stephen Little, Taoism and the Arts of China, pp. 324-327, nos. 120-122.

For a comprehensive history of soapstone carvings, see Richard John Lynn, Professor Emeritus of Chinese Thought and Literature, University of Toronto, published in Bonhams, Hong Kong, The Q Collection: Exquisite Soapstones, Wednesday 25 May 2011, pp. 146-154, where he provides documentary evidence of a large market for the soapstones mined near Fuzhou, Fujian province back to the Song dynasty, and a market resurgence in the late Ming, where there became both a domestic and large European market for figures such as the present lot. For related soapstone figures, See Maureen Cassidy-Geiger, Changing Attitudes Towards Ethnographic Material: Re-discovering the Soapstone Collection of Augustus the Strong, Frankfurt-Main, 1994, p. 20, no. 11.

Additional information

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