The Pagoda-Bearing Guardian

Viewing notes

A viewer's written impression — not a buyer review or first-hand record

This standing guardian king in red and gold bears a pagoda aloft. Crowned in splendour, his grey beard falling to his chest and his eyes wide with wrath, he wears golden armour covered in scale patterns and beast-mask motifs, crimson ribbons coiling like flame around his shoulders and back. He stands tall on his platform, one hand raising a small, finely tiered pagoda, the other lowered at his side gripping an implement, both feet planted firm — guardianship in every line. The base is a composition in itself: above, clouds roll in red, green and pink; below, deep blue waves; and set into the centre of the cloud-sea is a small golden seated Buddha in a flaming niche, flanked by two small blue lions with open, fanged mouths, keeping watch together with the king above. Fierce gold and red above, bright colour below — power and vividness in balance, a piece to guard the side of a shrine doorway or to command a room as its principal scene.