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Lot Essay
The results of the Report on Thermoluminescence Analysis no. 581s95 obtained by the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, Oxford University, are consistent with the dating of this lot.
Haniwa of armoured warriors and horses of the 5-6th century AD indicate the military power of the ancestors of the Imperial line and show that the horse must have played a major role in the unification struggles and the rise of the Yamato clan. Interestingly the Kojiki records that a pair of horses was sent as a gift from Korea to the Emperor Ojin (c. 300) together with Korean grooms. Although archaeology tells us that there were wild horses in Japan long before the Kofun period, it is believed that they were never previously domesticated. That horses and riding accoutrements were brought from China and Korea around the end of the 4th and beginning of the 5th century is attested by tomb contents which include both imported objects and objects made in Japan virtually identical to those found in Korean mounds of the same period. Representations of haniwa of horses are often found sculpted in such detail as to enable the positive identification of metal fragments of horse trappings found buried in the stone chambers of some tombs.
Similar examples with a saddle are in the collection of Tokyo National Museum, www.tnm.jp, reference number J-838 (Important Cultural Property), J-5769, J-20684, J-21154, J-36736. For further examples, see: Junkichi Mayuyama ed., Japanese Art in the West, (Tokyo, 1966), no. 430 (Musée Guimet, France), no. 431 (The Art Gallery, Indiana University, USA) and no. 432 (The Art Institute of Chicago, USA)
Another example was sold in Christie’s London on 15 October 2013, lot 4, sale 9555 and on 11 November 2015, lot 61, sale 12020.
Gordon Bunshaft (1909-1990) was one of the most influential architects of the 20th century, designing modernist skyscrapers, museums and libraries. He joined the architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in 1937 and spent 42 years there, gaining an immense international reputation of his own. He brought modern architecture to America in the 1950s with landmark buildings in New York including Lever House, One Chase Manhattan Plaza and the Pepsi-Cola Building.
In 1943 Gordon Bunshaft married Nina Wayler (d. 1994). Avid collectors of modern art, the couple amassed an important collection including works by Joan Miró, Alberto Giacometti, Jean Dubuffet, Henry Moore and Isamu Noguchi, amongst others. They lived in Manhattan House, New York, which Mr Bunshaft’s firm had helped to design, and in East Hampton in the only house Bunshaft ever designed. From 1975 Gordon Bunshaft was a trustee of the Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA) and in 1984 the couple pledged their entire modern art collection, along with the proceeds from the sale of the East Hampton house to the museum and the bequest was fulfilled upon Nina’s death in 1994. This haniwa horse was also gifted to the museum from the estate of Nina Bunshaft to be sold to raise further funds for further acquisitions in the Department of Painting and Sculpture.
Haniwa of armoured warriors and horses of the 5-6th century AD indicate the military power of the ancestors of the Imperial line and show that the horse must have played a major role in the unification struggles and the rise of the Yamato clan. Interestingly the Kojiki records that a pair of horses was sent as a gift from Korea to the Emperor Ojin (c. 300) together with Korean grooms. Although archaeology tells us that there were wild horses in Japan long before the Kofun period, it is believed that they were never previously domesticated. That horses and riding accoutrements were brought from China and Korea around the end of the 4th and beginning of the 5th century is attested by tomb contents which include both imported objects and objects made in Japan virtually identical to those found in Korean mounds of the same period. Representations of haniwa of horses are often found sculpted in such detail as to enable the positive identification of metal fragments of horse trappings found buried in the stone chambers of some tombs.
Similar examples with a saddle are in the collection of Tokyo National Museum, www.tnm.jp, reference number J-838 (Important Cultural Property), J-5769, J-20684, J-21154, J-36736. For further examples, see: Junkichi Mayuyama ed., Japanese Art in the West, (Tokyo, 1966), no. 430 (Musée Guimet, France), no. 431 (The Art Gallery, Indiana University, USA) and no. 432 (The Art Institute of Chicago, USA)
Another example was sold in Christie’s London on 15 October 2013, lot 4, sale 9555 and on 11 November 2015, lot 61, sale 12020.
Gordon Bunshaft (1909-1990) was one of the most influential architects of the 20th century, designing modernist skyscrapers, museums and libraries. He joined the architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in 1937 and spent 42 years there, gaining an immense international reputation of his own. He brought modern architecture to America in the 1950s with landmark buildings in New York including Lever House, One Chase Manhattan Plaza and the Pepsi-Cola Building.
In 1943 Gordon Bunshaft married Nina Wayler (d. 1994). Avid collectors of modern art, the couple amassed an important collection including works by Joan Miró, Alberto Giacometti, Jean Dubuffet, Henry Moore and Isamu Noguchi, amongst others. They lived in Manhattan House, New York, which Mr Bunshaft’s firm had helped to design, and in East Hampton in the only house Bunshaft ever designed. From 1975 Gordon Bunshaft was a trustee of the Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA) and in 1984 the couple pledged their entire modern art collection, along with the proceeds from the sale of the East Hampton house to the museum and the bequest was fulfilled upon Nina’s death in 1994. This haniwa horse was also gifted to the museum from the estate of Nina Bunshaft to be sold to raise further funds for further acquisitions in the Department of Painting and Sculpture.