Live Auction 2462Japanese & Korean Art
A large model of a pagoda
Lot 681

A large model of a pagoda

MEIJI PERIOD (CIRCA 1900)

Closed14 September 2011

Price Realised

USD 43,750

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A large model of a pagoda
Meiji period (circa 1900)
The four-sided, two-tiered model of a pagoda of carved and assembled wood on a square base with the Guardian Kings of the Four Directions (shitenno) at each of the four corners, the bottom tier with four sets of double doors opening to reveal the central seated Dainichi Nyorai surrounded by four smaller buddhas, the interiors of the doors with paintings of monks, the top tier fitted with windows opening to each of the four directions, the central band around the bottom of the top tier with small carvings of each of the twelve animal symbols of the zodiac; with gilt-metal fittings and metal bells hanging from the eaves
41in. (104cm.) high; 20½in. (52cm.) wide; 20½in. (52cm.) deep

Specialist note

Models of Buddhist temples and famous buildings were in vogue in Japan in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, spearheaded by scholars anxious to preserve and record rapidly deteriorating Buddhist sites. In 1910, the Japanese government gave this trend an antiquarian spin by appropriating their past as evidence of a venerable architectural heritage equal to that of Western powers. They sent scale models of the Yomeimon Gate and the inner precincts of the temple Todaiji in Nara, including twin seven-story pagodas, to London for the Japan-British Exhibition. That model of the Nikko Yomeimon Gate is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, which has a notable collection of scale models of Japanese architecture.