Smiling sculpture on the table
Text by Gerald Kozicz
Among the most formal and official events which were documented inside the home of the Skušeks are the visit by the Dimitrijevićs, the adjutant of King Alexander and his wife, around 1926, and the short movie commissioned by the Yugoslavian Broadcasting Company in 1957.
Budai on the table in the Skušek apartment at Strossmayer street Nr.3, Screenshot by Max Frühwirt © Filmske novosti Beograd, 1957
The coverage of the two events shows two different rooms. One feature however, is identical. It is the placement of a bronze of the Buddhist monk Budai on a round table. While the path of the movie camera is soon directed towards the dresser with the Buddhist deities, the photograph of the visit by the Dimitrijevićs captures the bronze right in front of Ivan Skušek (see Figure 6 in Motoh 2021: 128). Aesthetically – but even more importantly – structurally the Budai is paired and balanced by a bronze Buddha on the opposite side. This configuration is a requirement since the table board rests on four short arms that connect to the single central post. The table thus lacks load bearing structural support towards the perimeter or edge. Without the weight of the counterpart the Budai would cause the board to skip.
Budai on exhibition during the 2025 exhibition “Asia in the Heart of Ljubljana: The Life of the Skušek Collection” at the Slovene Ethnographic Museum, Photograph © Max Frühwirt 2025
Budai seems to have attracted quite some interest among collectors in China in the early 20th century. The best-known collector of bronzes of Budai is Sophus Black, an employ of the Danish Telegraph Company who was stationed in China for several decades (Törmä 2021: 54-59). While bronzes of Budai can be found in many Western collections today and rarely attract academic interest, the piece from the Skušek Collection still deserves attention. The craftsmanship is excellent. The monk is dressed in a robe which displays the same motif as the “Arhat”, namely the Auspicious Symbols of Buddhism.
Symbols visible on Budai’s robe, Photograph © Slovene Ethnographic Museum 2025
References
Motoh, Helena (2021). Lived in Museum: The Early 20th Century Skušek Collection. In Asian Studies Vol. 9, No. 3: Special Issue: East Asia in Slovenia: Collecting, Practices, Categorization and Representation, 119-140.
Törmä. Minna (2021). Nordic Private Collections of Chinese Objects, Routledge, New York – Oxon.