Galerie Jacques Barrère
France
Far Eastern art
Located for over thirty years on Rue Mazarine, in the heart of Paris’s Left Bank and just a few steps from the Louvre, Galerie Jacques Barrère is a landmark for enthusiasts of Asian art. With a family history dating back nearly a century, the gallery embodies excellence and tradition in the field of Far Eastern art.
The story began in the early 20th century with Mr. Laden, the grandfather of Jacques Barrère, who was already importing modern Chinese ivories, jades, and silks. In the 1960s, his daughter Germaine Barrère revived the business by opening a stand at the Saint-Ouen flea market, where she quickly met with success. In 1969, Jacques Barrère took over the family business and went on to found his own gallery a few years later.
Since then, the gallery has established itself as an international reference. Numerous artworks that passed through its hands have joined the collections of renowned museums worldwide, including the Musée Guimet and the Musée Cernuschi in Paris, the Shanghai Museum, the Miho Museum in Japan, the National Museum of Canberra in Australia, and the Louvre Abu Dhabi.
With its recognized expertise and carefully curated selection of Chinese, Japanese, and Himalayan works of art, Galerie Jacques Barrère passionately continues a unique family and cultural legacy while actively contributing to the promotion and appreciation of Asian art around the world.
HEAD OF BUDDHA
Bronze with hot gilt
Thailand
Sukhothai kingdom
14th - 15th century
Height: 66 cm
© Galerie Jacques Barrère
From the 11th century onwards, tribes originating from Yunnan, composed of "free men" (Thai), began a slow migration towards the South and gradually carved out kingdoms in the north and center of present-day Thailand. One of them, Sukhothai, taking advantage of the collapse of the Khmer empire, tried to unite a large part of the territory for its own benefit, particularly during the reign of Rama Kamheng (ca. 1279-c.1299). Theravada Buddhism dominated religious life from then on and will continue to do so until the present day. Bronze became the material of choice for sculptors. Temples, monasteries and private chapels were covered with representations of Sakyamuni, the historical Buddha (around 450 - 380 BC). As in Indian art, of the thirty-two principal signs and eighty secondary signs characterizing the state of Buddha, the artists retained only a few, here clearly explained, such as the tuft of hair at the bottom of the forehead, urna, and the protrusion of the sinciput, usnisha, or the lobes of the ears, pierced and distended by the weight of the heavy gold-plated ornaments characteristic of the princely status which Sakyamuni renounced in order to become religious. This monumental head has the characteristics of the Sukhothai style: elongation of the face, strongly marked superciliary arches, each in a perfect semicircle extending to the bridge of the nose. The nose is small and rounded. The hairline goes down to the middle of the forehead. At the top of the skull, the flame, symbol of the high level of spirituality attained by the Buddha, fundamental in the Sukhothai aesthetic but made separately, has not been preserved as on many heads of this style. In other schools of sculpture, such as Lan Na (Chien Maï) and U-Thong A, it is frequently replaced by a lotus bud.
While most major collections of Asian art have a bronze head in the Sukhothai style, few can, like this one, evoke the monumentality of the most accomplished statuary of this period.
Provenance :
- Dr. Gert-Rudolph Flick Collection, Lucerne and London, acquired in 1976
- Isidor Kahane, Zurich, 1983
- Private collection USA since then.