Lot 1189. A dated gilt-bronze figure of a bodhisattva, Sui dynasty, inscribed Daye sixth year, corresponding to 610, and of the period; 18 3/8 in. (46.7 cm.) high. Estimate USD 12,000 - USD 18,000. Price realised USD 147,750. © Christie's Images Ltd 2013

The seated figure is backed by a flame-carved mandorla carved with a foliate scroll aureole that frames the head, and wears a long diaphanous robe which cascades in crisp, overlapping folds over the front of the circular plinth that is raised on a columnar support surrounded by six narrow columns that rise from the lobed, layered base, which is carved on the back with a lengthy dedicatory inscription.

Fong Chow was born on December 2, 1923 in Tianjin (Tientsin), the eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. Y.K. Chow. His grandfather, the Honorable Sir Shouson Chow, was among the first Imperial Chinese Government students selected to study in the United States where he attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and Columbia University in New York City. After returning to China, Shouson Chow was appointed by the Government to build the Peking-Manchurian Railroad line. He was knighted by King George V in 1926. His father, Y.K. Chow, was educated in England and worked as a general manager in a coal mining firm. He later became manager of a department store in Hong Kong. Fong Chow spent his early childhood in Mukden, Manchuria, and moved to Hong Kong with his family in 1932, shortly after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. In Hong Kong, he attended Wah Yan College from which he graduated in 1946. He studied painting with Yu Ben, a Canada-based Chinese artist with Western academic and impressionist training. From an early age, Fong Chow developed an avid interest Chinese art, in particular the ceramic glazing techniques of the Tang and Song potters. He studied pottery making at the Shiwan ceramic center in Foshan near Guangzhou (Canton) and supplemented his formal training by spending several summers in Buddhist temples. 

After the Second World War, Fong Chow came to the United States where he studied drawing, painting, sculpture, print-making, and ceramics at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (1947-1951). There he studied sculpture with Ivan Mestrovic, etching and lithography with Arthur Heintzelman, and ceramics with Norman Arsenalt. Subsequently, Fong Chow studied ceramics design and production methods with Charles M. Harder at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University where he obtained a Bachelor's degree (1952) and a Master's degree (1954) in Fine Arts. From 1954 to 1957, he served as Chief Designer for the Glidden Pottery in Alfred, New York, where he guided and inspired approximately 30 fellow potters. 

In 1958, Fong Chow joined the Metropolitan Museum of Art as Assistant Curator in the Far Eastern Art department. He served as a curator of Far Eastern Art and Chinese Ceramics for 25 years and was the head of the Far Eastern Art department from 1964 to 1971. During his tenure, he was responsible for the installation of Chinese ceramics from the Benjamin Altman and John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Collections and of two major Chinese Buddhist sculpture galleries. He acquired for the museum important Chinese and Japanese paintings, Korean ceramics, and Indian sculptures. 

Fong Chow took early retirement in 1982 from the Metropolitan Museum to pursue his vocation as a creative artist, primarily in ceramics but also in photography, which became an increasingly important means of artistic expression.

Fong Chow's pottery has been exhibited broadly in the United States - Syracuse, Chicago, Pittsfield, Boston, Wichita, New York - and overseas - at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. His ceramics received the 17th National Ceramic award from the Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts and, in 1953, the Good Design award from the Museum of Modern Art, New York. 

Note: The dedicatory inscription dated to Daye sixth year (AD 610), seventh month, fifteenth day, also bears the name of the maker, Cao Zijin, who commissioned the figure for his deceased mother.

Christie's. Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, New York, 21 - 22 March 2013