Dobrovits Aladár szerk.: Az Iparművészeti Múzeum Évkönyvei 3-4. (Budapest, 1959)
HOPP FERENC KELETÁZSIAI MŰVÉSZETI MÚZEUM - Tibor Horváth: The new acquisitions of the Francis Hopp's Museum
TIBOR HORVÁTH SOME RECENT ACQUISITIONS IN THE FRANCIS HOPP MUSEUM OF EASTERN ASIATIC ARTS 1. China. Lohan. Dried lacquer statue. (Fig. 1—2) H. 29.2 cm. 13— 14th century. Inv. no. 57.198.1. 1—2. Purchased from a private collection from where it came from Tokyo. Seated (on a block of unpainted wood, carved as a rock imitation ; later work), the hands are missing. The simple robe of a priest covers the whole body from the neck down to the feet. Wide sleeves hang down on the knees. The edge of the robe on the right side — from the right waist down to the left ankle — is arranged like drapery folds in rhythmical repetitions. The head is very characteristic, bald at the top with long heavy locks touching the shoulders. Deep wrinkles mark the forehead and both sides of the mouth. The eyebrows are thick and there is a short trimmed moustache and beard. The eyes are almost closed. The statue is made up of a thick coat of lacquer on hemp cloths, painted first deep cinnabar red and then gilded. The latter has mostly disappeared and has been substituted with a reddish gold coating, most likely at the beginning of the Ch'ing-dynasty. The lacquer is cracked in most places and in some parts powdered off, as on the forehead and on the knees. About the beginning of this type of sculpture, we do not know very much. According to Laurence Sickman, the Buddha in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York "may well be from the second part of the sixth century", 1 although Alain Priest has dated it from the T'ang period. 2 However, this is the earliest known Chinese example. In Japan such statues were first mentioned under the name of "soku", in the Inventory-list (Shizai-chö) of Daian-ji, listing the Four Tennö offered by the emperor Tenchi (662—671). These did not survie the repeated destructions of this temple. The other Four Tennö in the Kondö of Taima-dera are thought to be from the same period. 3 This type of sculpture was made mostly in the Nara period (645—781), from the following Early Heian (or Jögan) period (782—897) only the following items 1 L. Sickman—A. Soper : The Art and Architecture of China. The Pelican History of Art, Penguin Books, 1956, p. 101. 2 A . Priest : Chinese Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1944, Cat. no. 41, pl. LXXXIII. 3 Mochimaru Kazuo — Kuno Takeshi : Nihon bijutsushi yösetsu, Tokyo, Yoshikawa Köbun-kan, 1957 s , p. 21, note 1. 21 Iparművészeti Múzeum Évkönyve 321
