A RARE BRONZE LION BELL TERMINAL, EASTERN JAVANESE PERIOD, 12TH CENTURY

A finely cast bronze figure of a lion, almost certainly the upper portion of an important ritual temple bell, and part of a rather small corpus of surviving Javanese bronzes depicting the powerful feline. The gazing eyes outlined below folds of skins, ears of spade-form, mane with three stylized rows of curls, the figure standing erect above a primitive lotus-form base, with claws unsheathed and ready to strike.

Provenance: The Marcel Marnat Collection, Paris, France. A collector in Chicago, USA, acquired from the above. Marcel Marnat (b. 1933) is a French musicologist, journalist, and radio producer. He has written books about Maurice Ravel, Joseph Haydn, Igor Stravinsky, Antonio Vivaldi, and Giacomo Puccini, and published articles on Modest Mussorgsky, Michelangelo, D. H. Lawrence, Paul Klee, and Ludwig van Beethoven. His book on Giacomo Puccini was honored by the Académie des Beaux-Arts and received the prix Pelléas as well as a prize for a musical biography of the SACEM at the Deauville book festival. He was an assiduous visitor to Hôtel Drouot for a long time and has built an eclectic collection including Southeast Asian and Indian works of art.
Condition: Very good condition, commensurate with age. Extensive wear, minor losses and nicks, shallow surface scratches, expected casting flaws, signs of weathering and erosion, and encrustations. Superb, naturally grown patina.

Weight: 1,127 g
Dimensions: Height 16.5 cm (excl. stand) and 21.7 cm (incl. stand)

Mounted on a modern stand. (2)

Javanese bronze images of lions are rare, but thankfully several large stone guardians remain scattered across ancient temple sites, such as the pair at the eastern staircase in Borobudur. These ancient stone guardians give us important clues for stylistic dating comparisons. The rarity of bronze lions probably stems from the fact that images of lions in Java were likely imported from Sri Lanka when Gunadharma, the great 9th-century architect, designed Borobudur for King Samaratungga of the Sailendra Dynasty. The depiction of these lions follows a clear evolution from the early examples at the palace of King Ashurnasirpal II in Assyria to the pair carved two millennia later at Yapahuwa Castle in Sri Lanka.

Expert’s note: The bronze has an attractive, deep patina that is characteristic of early Javanese metal works exposed to the tropical climate of Indonesia for many centuries.

Literature comparison: Compare a closely related demon-form top of a bell, 12.5 cm high, also dated to the Eastern Javanese period, ca. second half of the 12th to early 13th century, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession numbers 1987.142.17. Compare a closely related demon-form top of a bell, 11.8 cm high, also dated to the Eastern Javanese period, 14th century, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession number 1982.460.2. For an in-depth discussion and comparison of the iconography of guardian lions across Asia through the ages, see Masatoshi Iguchi, Java Essay: The History and Culture of a Southern Country, Leicester, 2015.

Auction result comparison:
Type: Closely related
Auction: Christie’s Amsterdam, 2 December 2002, lot 173
Price: EUR 7,768 or approx. EUR 12,000 adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: A Javanese bronze temple bell, 13th/14th century
Expert remark: This comparable confirms that the size of the present lot is within the appropriate range for a bell-handle element. Compare also the similarities in both the patina and the archaic pointed lotus petal-form base surrounding the figures.

Auction result comparison:
Type: Remotely related
Auction: Christie’s London, 25 October 2007, lot 198
Price: GBP 11,875 or approx. EUR 20,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: A bronze lion terminal, probably India, 14th century
Expert remark: A similar type of rampant lion-form bronze handle. By comparison, the Javanese example can be viewed as a stand-alone object, and not primarily as a fragment, and is much more desirable in that regard. Seeing similar objects from other regions also further solidifies the iconographic power that the lion held across ancient cultures as discussed by Masatoshi Iguchi.