Lot 182. Grande statue de dignitaire en bronze partiellement doré, Chine, dynastie Ming, XVIIème siècle. Hauteur: 93,5 cm. (36 ¾ in.). Estimate: EUR 50,000 - EUR 70,000. Price realised EUR 52,500. © Christie's Images Ltd 2019.

Il est représenté debout sur un haut socle rectangulaire. Ses mains dorées sont jointes devant sa poitrine tenant une tablette hu. Il est vêtu d'une longue robe officielle richement brodée et porte la coiffe caractéristique. Son visage est empreint de sérénité.

A LARGE PARCEL-GILT BRONZE FIGURE OF A STANDING OFFICIAL, CHINA, MING DYNASTY, 17TH CENTURY 

Provenance: Previously in the collection of Aimée Crocker (1864-1941), acquired in China circa 1900-1920, thence by descent in the family.

Literature: Kevin TAYLOR, Aimée Crocker: Queen of Bohemia, Frugoli and Taylor, Los Angeles, 2017, p. 387.

Note: Aimée Crocker was born in 1864 in a wealthy family of the West Coast of the United States. After her studies in Dresden, Germany, and a first American marriage which ended in a divorce, she left America and began to travel in the East Asia. She went everywhere from Hawaii to China and was the very first Western woman to meet the Dalai Lama in the 1920s. She then became a Buddhist and began to collect Asian Buddhist sculptures and works of art including this current Ming gilt-bronze figure of an official. After a few marriages and an adventurous life, she lived in Paris where she wrote her autobiography and several novels and passed away in 1941. Today she is still remembered for her exploration of the Far-East, her extravagant parties in the United States and in Europe and her collections of husbands, jewels and exotic animals.

Aimée Crocker