A PAIR OF CHINESE STONE FIGURES OF GUARDIAN LIONS

A PAIR OF CHINESE STONE FIGURES OF GUARDIAN LIONS
TANG DYNASTY OR PERHAPS LATER

The beasts powerfully carved, depicted seated on their haunches each with one of their hind legs raised, one turning its head to dexter, the other to sinister, both with broad, muscular chests and tightly curled manes, their faces with bulging eyes and mouths wide open revealing fangs, each supported on a square pedestal, the stones of a brownish-grey tone with white striations, 43cm. (2)

Provenance: formerly an English private collection, Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex.

Cf. The Minneapolis Institute of Art, The Ruth Ann Dayton Chinese Room Endowment Fund, accession no. 2008.23.1 for a closely related pair of limestone lions.

While the Han dynasty tradition of placing pairs of lions at tomb sites had largely fallen out of practice during the Northern Qi period, it was revived under the Tang. The lion is not indigenous to China, but with the importation of Buddhism from India along the Silk Road, Chinese artisans adopted the Indian practice of using the lion to symbolize the Buddha Sakyamuni. In addition, the inherent power and strength of the lion led to it being featured as a symbolic protector of the Buddhist sacred law and pairs of guardian lions were used to flank entrances to cave temples, Buddhist altars, and thrones as well as tomb doorways. Large stone lions can be seen at the Imperial Tang tombs; for instance, a similarly rendered standing lion with protruding ribs from Emperor Taizong's tomb is now housed in the Shaanxi Provincial Museum in Xi’an. In pre-Tang China most sculpted lions were highly stylised, static, housecat-like characterisations of the 'king of beasts'. Court records show however that in 635 AD the Chinese emperor was presented a real lion as a tribute gift from Samarkand. Direct observation of an actual lion by artists dramatically changed their sculptural representations to the more realistic, animated, and powerful creatures as depicted here.

唐或更晚 石雕坐獅 一對
來源：英國埃塞克斯郡濱海韋斯特克里夫私人舊藏。