Country Group:

Item id: 10892

Edo Japanese Stone Buddha/Monk. I purchased a lifetime collection of small stone Buddhist sculptures Were purchased through the sun of a Japanese gentleman who had collected these In Japan throughout his collecting career. Each one was carved out of a specific kind of stone as there seem to be four or five specific kinds of stone represented Within the collection, and specific types seem to be made of the same type of rock. Most of them, including this one are extremely hard stone, which would have been difficult to hand carve with the simple tools that it appears were used to carve them. It’s surprising that in my 40+ year collecting and 35 year selling career that I’ve not come across one of these before. This means that they are likely rare or at least very uncommon and possibly from a small geographic area. All of them display significant ritual wear, which suggests that they were either carried with the owners or were kept on a portable shrine or were regularly used in some other way over a long period of time. They were all described to me as being from the.Edo period (1603-1968), and based on the style of the figures and the amount of where they display, I have no reason to dispute this dating. I believe that all or almost all of them originally had detail to the faces and to the bodies that has worn to some level. Some of them still display, crisp detail, and others are almost completely worn into shadows of their former selves. Many of them have echoes of their faces that can be seen in the right lighting, and you can feel the life and spiritual energy in all of them. It is one of the things that really stands out about these as a group-When you look at them together, you can feel the devotion and spiritual energy that has poured into them over time. Some of them stand up, most of them do not and could benefit from a stand if you wanted to display them as a statue, I’m posting more than half of them right now, so you can get sense of them side-by-side as it helps to see them together. The other others will not be put up for sale for sometime as I have them on my own home altarand plan to keep them for some time before putting them up for sale.

This one has a nice face and has a great personality. ( 2"H x 1.5"W x .75"D ) - 35g.