Weiner Mihályné szerk.: Az Iparművészeti Múzeum Évkönyvei 10. (Budapest, 1967)

HOPP FERENC MÚZEUM - MUSÉE FERENC HOPP - Horváth, Tibor: Reports on the Activities of the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts in 1965-1966

upper lip, the gold lacquer remains nearly in one piece. The eye-slits are also covered by gold lacquer. Black points mark the eyeballs. The coating of gold lacquer remains best of all on the upper body, on other parts it flaked off so that the layer of the reddish brown lacquer became visible. On the left knot of hair we can read the Sanscrit letter "ha" written in Chinese ink. (This time I am much obliged to my colleague, György Kovács, for his reading) This letter makes it possible to consider the piece as a statue of a smaller shrine. It is surprising, that the whole statuette, coated with two layers of lacquer, originally appeared with the coating of gold lacquer, except the hair and the pedestal. By means of ivory representing a valuable and precious material, did such statuettes ever replace the gold ones? For the most part we could think so. Soame Jenyns, "Chinese Carvings in Elephant Ivory" (Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, 1951— 1952, 1952-53, PI. 14. Fig. 5.), also publishing the title-page, Kuan-yin on a horse-back, of the first volume of S. E. Lucas, "Catalogue of the Sassoon Collections". Likewise this statuette is coated wholly with gold lacquer, and according to Jenyns its date: "probably 13

th century." Besides the stylistic features the coating of gold lacquer, as a technical solution, this also helped us in dating the piece. Height: 19.1 cm. Inventory number: 66.56. T. II.