Lacquered Wooden Statue Of A Queen, Vietnam, 18th Century

A very rare statue of a female dignitary or queen, carved and lacquered in polychrome and gold. The hieratic figure is seated, her left hand on her knee, her head richly adorned with jewels and a diadem. She wears a long blue-green and red robe lavishly decorated with stylized scrolls in relief, delicately gilded. Vietnam, 7th-18th century. Height: 46 cm. Provenance: Private collection, formerly in the collection of the prestigious Maison Denis-Frères. (Wear, losses, and restorations). This cult statue is one of the few of its kind known to have survived the vicissitudes of history. Inspired by Ming dynasty ancestor statues in China, it adopts their style, adapting it to Vietnamese culture. It represents a high-ranking woman, the wife of a high-ranking mandarin, queen, or empress. Its prestigious provenance—the former collection of the Maison Denis Frères—makes it all the more interesting, as this family was undoubtedly the most powerful in Indochina and benefited from diplomatic gifts directly from His Majesty the Emperor, who had several works removed from the imperial collections for the occasion as tokens of friendship. While there is no proof that this statue from their collection was acquired in this way, its rarity suggests a prestigious provenance.