9th Mar, 2023 13:00

TWO-DAY AUCTION - Fine Chinese Art / 中國藝術集珍 / Buddhism & Hinduism

 
Lot 214
 

214

A BRONZE HEAD OF A MAN, GOA MADE, EAST JAVA, INDONESIA, 1ST MILLENNIUM BC - 1ST MILLENNIUM AD

Sold for €5,200

including Buyer's Premium


Lot details

Published: Claudio Giardino, Massimo Vidale, and Gian Luca Bonora (editors), Goa Made - An Archeological Discovery, Rome, 2012, page 241, no. 215.
Agus Aris Munandar, Hitawasana: Studies on Indonesian Archeology, page 55, no. 6.

Finely cast and modeled in the round with a hollow interior. The face with almond-shaped eyes below prominent lids and gently arched brows, centered by a long nose of trapezoidal section above a raised mouth, flanked by elongated ears.

Provenance: A private collector in London, United Kingdom, and thence by descent to his daughter Amanda Torri. Alex Torri, Bologna, Italy, inherited from the above. Paolo Bertuzzi, acquired from the above in 2002. A copy of the original invoice from Alex Torri, dated 25 June 2002, showing an image of the present lot, and stating a purchase price of ITL 15,000,000 or approx. EUR 12,000 (converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing), accompanies this lot. Paolo Bertuzzi (1943-2022) was a fashion stylist from Bologna, Italy, and the son of Enrichetta Bertuzzi, founder of Hettabretz, a noted Italian fashion company with customers such as the Rothschild family, Audrey Hepburn, and Elizabeth Taylor. Paolo Bertuzzi later took over his mother’s business and designed exclusive pieces, some of which were exhibited in the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, USA. He was also an avid collector of antiques for more than 60 years. His collection includes both archaic and contemporary art, and he edited two important books about Asian art, Goa Made - An Archaeological Discovery, about a large-scale archaeological project carried out with the Italian and Indonesian governments, and Majapahit, Masterpieces from a Forgotten Kingdom.
Condition: Excellent condition, commensurate with age. Some wear, minor losses, small nicks, light scratches, signs of weathering and erosion, encrustations. The head is entirely covered in a superb, naturally grown, malachite-green patina with small areas of azurite encrustation to the interior.

Weight: 735.1 g
Dimensions: Height 26 cm

Goa (or Gua) Made (Made Cave) is a site north of the Brantas River in East Java. Its importance was first discovered by Anacleto Spazzapan, an Italian archeologist, designer, and collector of ethnographic and folk art who frequently traveled to Indonesia. He was first led to the site in 1999 and brought back fragments of fired clay, which he sent to Arcadia labs in Milan for thermoluminescence testing. The first official excavations were subsequently conducted in an underground temple by the Bureau for the Archaeological Conservation of East Java (BACEJ) in 2001 and 2006, the latter funded by Paolo Bertuzzi (the last owner of the present lot), who had developed a profound interest in the site. Finds included imported glazed pottery, Chinese copper or bronze coins, and highly distinct bronze heads such as the present lot. Thermoluminescence analysis of terracotta bricks found in the excavations indicated a date in the early 1st millennium BC. This would not only suggest the discovery of a lost civilization but also challenge widely held notions of Southeast Asian history. The earliest uncontested architectural remains in East Java are two temples dating from the 8th - 9th century AD.

In 2007, larger-scale excavations were carried out by a team of Italian and Indonesian archeologists, which revealed a previously overlooked shaft, a complex subterranean structure displaying a sophisticated integrated design that would have required mass community involvement in both its construction and usage. In the following years, disagreements between archeologists involved in the Goa Made project began to emerge. A 2010 article by Andreas M. Steiner and Massimo Vidale in the renowned Italian magazine Archeo supports the dating of the bronze heads to the early 1st millennium BC. In the same year, however, Fiorella Rispoli wrote an article for World Archeology Magazine wherein she questions the accuracy of the thermoluminescence analysis and instead proposed a post-10th century AD dating for the bronze heads, suggesting that the underground temple was most likely a water control system, while the heads should rather be placed within the tradition of East Java folk practices. In his 2016 book Hitawasana, Studies on Indonesian Archeology (where the present lot is illustrated, page 55), Prof. Dr. Agus Aris Munandar from the University of Indonesia wrote that further scientific studies remain necessary, and that additional research is expected to step-by-step resolve the questions regarding this important archeological site.

 

Published: Claudio Giardino, Massimo Vidale, and Gian Luca Bonora (editors), Goa Made - An Archeological Discovery, Rome, 2012, page 241, no. 215.
Agus Aris Munandar, Hitawasana: Studies on Indonesian Archeology, page 55, no. 6.

Finely cast and modeled in the round with a hollow interior. The face with almond-shaped eyes below prominent lids and gently arched brows, centered by a long nose of trapezoidal section above a raised mouth, flanked by elongated ears.

Provenance: A private collector in London, United Kingdom, and thence by descent to his daughter Amanda Torri. Alex Torri, Bologna, Italy, inherited from the above. Paolo Bertuzzi, acquired from the above in 2002. A copy of the original invoice from Alex Torri, dated 25 June 2002, showing an image of the present lot, and stating a purchase price of ITL 15,000,000 or approx. EUR 12,000 (converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing), accompanies this lot. Paolo Bertuzzi (1943-2022) was a fashion stylist from Bologna, Italy, and the son of Enrichetta Bertuzzi, founder of Hettabretz, a noted Italian fashion company with customers such as the Rothschild family, Audrey Hepburn, and Elizabeth Taylor. Paolo Bertuzzi later took over his mother’s business and designed exclusive pieces, some of which were exhibited in the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, USA. He was also an avid collector of antiques for more than 60 years. His collection includes both archaic and contemporary art, and he edited two important books about Asian art, Goa Made - An Archaeological Discovery, about a large-scale archaeological project carried out with the Italian and Indonesian governments, and Majapahit, Masterpieces from a Forgotten Kingdom.
Condition: Excellent condition, commensurate with age. Some wear, minor losses, small nicks, light scratches, signs of weathering and erosion, encrustations. The head is entirely covered in a superb, naturally grown, malachite-green patina with small areas of azurite encrustation to the interior.

Weight: 735.1 g
Dimensions: Height 26 cm

Goa (or Gua) Made (Made Cave) is a site north of the Brantas River in East Java. Its importance was first discovered by Anacleto Spazzapan, an Italian archeologist, designer, and collector of ethnographic and folk art who frequently traveled to Indonesia. He was first led to the site in 1999 and brought back fragments of fired clay, which he sent to Arcadia labs in Milan for thermoluminescence testing. The first official excavations were subsequently conducted in an underground temple by the Bureau for the Archaeological Conservation of East Java (BACEJ) in 2001 and 2006, the latter funded by Paolo Bertuzzi (the last owner of the present lot), who had developed a profound interest in the site. Finds included imported glazed pottery, Chinese copper or bronze coins, and highly distinct bronze heads such as the present lot. Thermoluminescence analysis of terracotta bricks found in the excavations indicated a date in the early 1st millennium BC. This would not only suggest the discovery of a lost civilization but also challenge widely held notions of Southeast Asian history. The earliest uncontested architectural remains in East Java are two temples dating from the 8th - 9th century AD.

In 2007, larger-scale excavations were carried out by a team of Italian and Indonesian archeologists, which revealed a previously overlooked shaft, a complex subterranean structure displaying a sophisticated integrated design that would have required mass community involvement in both its construction and usage. In the following years, disagreements between archeologists involved in the Goa Made project began to emerge. A 2010 article by Andreas M. Steiner and Massimo Vidale in the renowned Italian magazine Archeo supports the dating of the bronze heads to the early 1st millennium BC. In the same year, however, Fiorella Rispoli wrote an article for World Archeology Magazine wherein she questions the accuracy of the thermoluminescence analysis and instead proposed a post-10th century AD dating for the bronze heads, suggesting that the underground temple was most likely a water control system, while the heads should rather be placed within the tradition of East Java folk practices. In his 2016 book Hitawasana, Studies on Indonesian Archeology (where the present lot is illustrated, page 55), Prof. Dr. Agus Aris Munandar from the University of Indonesia wrote that further scientific studies remain necessary, and that additional research is expected to step-by-step resolve the questions regarding this important archeological site.

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