Attribution Issues of the Showpiece of the State Museum of the East. On the Example of the "Head with a three-legged toad"

Abstract

The object of this research is the activity of the museum in the field of storage, study and attribution of monuments of material culture. The subject of the work is an showpiece of the permanent collection of the Art of China section of the State Museum of Oriental Art, designated as "A Head with a three-legged toad". The purpose of this article is to consider the problems of attribution of this museum object and propose ways to solve them for subsequent re-attribution based on new information obtained during the study. The author examines the connection of the "Head ..." with mass culture, analyzes the data of the State Museum of the East on the alleged real prototypes of sculpture, as well as the legitimacy of the assumptions put forward. Special attention is paid to the importance of the museum's constant study of primary sources – stored objects, updating information about them through new research and technologies. The work on the research was carried out within the framework of an interdisciplinary approach, using such methods as historical-typological, historical-genetic, comparative analysis, as well as the method of interpreting a work of art. In the course of the analysis, the author provides information on the basis of which the correctness of the statements in the official information channels of the State Museum of the East regarding the showpiece "Head with a three-legged toad" is questioned. The dating of the object to the Han period is questioned, since the life years of the personalities indicated as possible prototypes of the "Head..." – Hou-xian, Liu Har and Guo Xiang – belong to a later time. It is noted that the intended purpose of the "Head ..." – the replacement of the real one in the burial of a decapitated person – turns out to be a rather late practice and does not correlate with the dating of the creation of the showpiece. A hypothesis is put forward about the possible non-Chinese origin of the tradition of this type of images. The collected data can become the basis for the re-attribution of the showpiece, a more thorough study of it and filling in the "white spots" in its biography. The identification of a more accurate and definite dating and the region of origin of this museum object will positively affect the comprehensive knowledge about it, expand information about the funerary culture and mythological tradition of China.