Anyone recognize this antique?

February 24, 2008 11:34 AM

Any ideas what this asian antique is?

This is for a friend of mine. He's in Alaska so he can't do a whole lot of research.

Pictures 1 2 3 4

It's big and apparently breaks into 3 pieces.


His grandfather got it as payment for doing surgery on an Asian man around WW1.

It could be Japanese or Korean and has some sort of Buddhist parable about a lion or dog(I can't tell)

It was appraised by a potentially shady dealer in the 70's who mentioned 'haida iron work' but that is suspect.

Any ideas? Or just an old Asian thing?

posted by Lord_Pall to grab bag (13 comments total)

Where was this man from or where did his grandfather do this surgery?

All I can find on Haida Art is that it is attributable to indigenous people living in the Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia. They did work in bronze. It is entirely possible, if this piece was taken to a dealer in Alaska, that they just compared it to what they know best, which is regional art and antiques.

If the piece is from elsewhere, Japan or Korea for example, this Alaskan dealer might not have known enough about art from that region to correctly identify it.

Are there any markings on the bottom? Signatures? A stamp?
posted by jeanmari at 12:07 PM on February 24

The crysanthemums on the edge of the lid suggests Japanese but the style of the dog on top is seems very Chinese.

Do each of the 3 pieces have a bottom to it? It could just a be stackable boxes shaped like an urn. Otherwise, I'd guess that it's just a piece of ornament. Followers of geomancy (toaist fung sui) place different kinds of objects around the house to conserve energy and block inauspicious influences from coming in.
posted by porpoise at 12:13 PM on February 24

Asian, not Haida, that's for sure.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 1:53 PM on February 24

Haida art is more like totem poles, very abstract carved animals, usually wood or stone, not metal. This is not Haida. Maybe the dealer said something else that sounded like Haida?
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:42 PM on February 24

Upon further looking I'm wrong about the metal (Haida did work in it). The works I know from the Haida aren't metal, though, and this doesn't look anything at all like them.
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:57 PM on February 24

Is your friend able to move it around and take more pictures? If he can find any sort of writing or maker's/artist's marks on it, that could help narrow it down a lot.

For what it's worth (which isn't much, since I'm not an asian art dealer) the scene on the front looks Japanese to me. And the figure on the top doesn't look like any representation of the Buddha that I've seen.
posted by CKmtl at 6:37 PM on February 24

The figure on the lid is very reminiscent of the statuary of the arhats (Ch: 罗汉) you see in temples. Looking at the illustrations at that link, could it be a representation of Vajraputra, the former lion hunter now "man of cats" with a companion lion impressed by his eschewal of his former cat-killing ways?
posted by Abiezer at 7:21 PM on February 24

This list of the arhats says a bit about how each is typically portrayed. (Though looking around, there's a ton of variation) Possibilities: Bhadra (sometimes portrayed soothing a tiger; here he is described as "the arhat who crossed the river", possibly connected to the fishing scene on the bottom of the urn?); Vajraputra (portrayed as very hairy or very lean and ribbed);; Panthaka ("frequently portrayed as charming a dragon into his alms-bowl"; another name for someone charming a dragon into an alms bowl is Massakaspaya or Kaspaya here); Rahula (depicted as "having an umbrella shaped head"); Nakula (aka Vakula; sitting silently, sometimes as a teacher with a rosary and a small boy, pic). Others are described as having "long eyebrows", but your guy seems to have bushy eyebrows rather than long ones, and I'm not sure that's the same.

Apparently in Japan the arhats are also called rakan or arakan, and in Chinese they're called lohan. (?)
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:19 PM on February 24

Lots more pictures
posted by Lord_Pall at 9:50 PM on February 24

Those figures with saint-like haloes on the back have long eyebrows. I bet they are arhats - check out the list, at least one of them is conventionally portrayed with a book or scroll, and others are portrayed with alms bowls. I wonder if there's a traditional scene from Buddha's life that's depicted on the front (the fisherman, the water carrier, etc).
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:11 PM on February 24

Really doesn't look Korean at all--looks Japanese to me.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 1:38 AM on February 25

The figures with the haloes have the fat earlobes of the arhats too. As an aside, I understand the halo was a convention that was picked up by Christian iconographers from Silk Road kingdom Buddhist art.
Pretty convinced yer man on the lid is Vajraputra having had a better look at the lion cub. Apparently he's colloquially known as the 笑狮罗汉 (Traditional: 笑獅羅漢) and image searches on that find similar representations.
I see what Joseph's saying about the Japanese look of it, but then it's not entirely unlike the various statues I've seen in Luohan halls at temples. Here's a Chinese wall carving of all eighteen in a not dissimilar style.
Looking at the holes and given the religious figures, I wonder if the whole thing was an incense burner?
posted by Abiezer at 3:32 AM on February 25 [1 favorite]

This is a japanese piece, Suggest you could contact the Seattle Asian Art Museum for a more definitive statement. Nice piece.
posted by ptm at 2:34 AM on February 26