A RARE BRONZE LION BELL TERMINAL, EASTERN JAVANESE PERIOD, 12TH CENTURYA 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 Gio Puccini, and published articles on Modest Mussorgsky, Michelangelo, D. H. Lawrence, Paul Klee, and Ludwig van Beethoven. His book on Gio 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,mensurate 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 gDimensions: 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 datingparisons. 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.Literatureparison:pare 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 .pare 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 andpari