Figure of an entertainer

From at least 1949 to 1951
F. Low-Beer & Co., New York, N.Y., from at least May 9, 1949 [1]

From 1951
Freer Gallery of Art, purchased from Fritz Low-Beer (1906-1976) on June 27, 1951 [2]

Notes:

[1] Fritz Low-Beer offered the figure to the Freer Gallery of Art for acquisition in his correspondence with Archibald G. Wenley, Director, Freer Gallery of Art, see F. Low-Beer to A. G. Wenley, May 9, 1949, copy in object file. It was presented together with the zither tuning key decorated with bear (F1951.7b) as two-part sculpture with bear and figure joined to look as if the figure was holding the bear aloft on a pole. The figure’s raised hand supporting the tuning key has been reshaped into a rectangular stump, presumably in the early decades of the 20th century. The sculpture was approved for purchase in June 1949, see document confirming the examination of the object and approval by the Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, the Commission of Fine Arts, and Katherine Rhoades, June 21, 1949, copy in object file.

[2] See Fritz Low-Beer & Co.’s invoice, dated June 27, 1951, where the object is listed with F1951.7b as “Bronze statuette of man with animal, Chinese, Loyang,” copy in object file. The acquisition was announced in “Chinese Art Recently Acquired by American Museums,” Archives of the Chinese Art Society of America VI (1952), fig. 10.