Asian Rare Art
Asian Scuplture & Works of Art
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Asian Rare Art Asian Scuplture & Works of Art |
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Shirley Day has had a long career dealing in Asian Sculpture and Works of Art since 1967 and her gallery, located in the St. James's area of Jermyn Street, London, was a well-known and popular meeting and exhibition place and venue for approximately 25 years. | A pioneer in many areas including the early calligraphy, Buddhist painting and sculpture of Japan. Other of her pioneering specialities were the metalwork arts of Dongson, Central Java and Majapahid Indonesia, and early Buddhist bronze sculpture from Borneo, and the arts of the Indus Valley. Shirley Day has also had long experience with ancient Chinese, Indian Gandharan, and other Southeast Asian art, often working behind the scenes in collaboration with others as well as having placed many important works with major museums and private collections in Europe, America, Australia and Japan. |
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| Nowadays she is dealing privately (by appointment only) between New York and Brussels, and has great pleasure in presenting this online exhibition of her recent acquisitions. Her online exhibition includes a number of ancient stone objects of minimalist form which are not only classically beautiful in their simplicity, worthy in any setting, but are also within an affordable price range. The Mergargh ceramic vessel depicts, amongst four feline species, a walking anthropomorphic lion-headed figure which is perhaps the only known example of a painted human form from this enigmatic early Indus Valley culture, and is remarkable in that it may predate the Lion-headed Sehkmet of Egyptian iconography by some 6-800 years. |
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| Although the exhibition contains several fine and worthy sculptures such as the Medieval Indian Kubera Stele, (B3) Day draws particular focus to one outstanding work: the Celestial Buddhist Attendant from Hund, Pakistan (B1).
This visually magnificent bust is particularly important for its affinities with the
final phase of Buddhist art of the northwest-Afghanistan and Central Asian Greco-Roman tradition, but also provides a link with post Gupta mannerism of Indian art. Also, its distinctive facial features have greatest affinities with Kashmiri sculpture thereby linking it with the earliest Himalayan Buddhist art of the period.
The terracotta sculpture would probably have formed part of a monumental Buddhist altar, and in the rendering of its elaborate hairdo and ornamentation, is not unlike the superb, nearly life-size clay images from Fondukistan, now housed in the Musee Guimet, Paris. Together with the related, less complete, downward looking male Bodhisattva in the next entry, (B2) the slender and shapely figure is bare-breasted except for two rows of elaborately jewelled necklaces, pendant earrings, and armbands, all modelled in high relief applique. The extraordinary hairdo in the female sculpture (B1) consists of a centre parting with double whorls of hair curling inwards towards the forehead - a relatively flattened and simple style contrasting significantly with the wild mass of braided strands which fall onto and above the shoulders, looping upwards and outwards to form a wide frame around the face, and culminating in a towering crown of a single lotus with radiating petals (the upper ones now missing). Like the male figure (B2), The face itself is finely sculpted with the typically Kashmiri features of wide face, straight and pointed nose, small, fleshy bow-shaped mouth, and large almond shaped eyes with arching eyebrows spanning the wide expanse of the forehead. The Celestial female attendant has both arms are bent upwards and slightly outwards at the elbows. Within the delicately modelled fingers are two lotus flower offerings. Shirley Day has much pleasure in presenting this on-line selling exhibition of new acquisitions,
which she hopes you will enjoy - and have no trouble in navigating.
You may reach her by e-mail : day.s.j@att.net or by telephone: 322 640 1584 or cell: 32 473 420209 |
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| Exhibition of Asian Sculpture & Works of Art | ||
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