{"id":1043,"date":"2026-11-02T17:09:33","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T17:09:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iam.tugraz.at\/research\/skusek\/?p=1043"},"modified":"2026-11-02T17:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T17:14:09","slug":"17_budai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iam.tugraz.at\/research\/skusek\/2026\/11\/02\/17_budai\/","title":{"rendered":"17_Budai"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Smiling sculpture on the table<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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Text by Gerald Kozicz<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Among the most formal and official events which were documented inside the home of the Sku\u0161eks are the visit by the Dimitrijevi\u0107s, the adjutant of King Alexander and his wife, around 1926, and the short movie<\/strong><\/a> commissioned by the Yugoslavian Broadcasting Company in 1957.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Budai on the table in the Sku\u0161ek apartment at Strossmayer street Nr.3, Screenshot by Max Fr\u00fchwirt \u00a9 Filmske novosti Beograd, 1957<\/span><\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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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 Dimitrijevi\u0107s captures the bronze right in front of Ivan Sku\u0161ek (see Figure 6 in Motoh 2021: 128). Aesthetically \u2013 but even more importantly \u2013 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.\u00a0 Without the weight of the counterpart the Budai would cause the board to skip.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Budai on exhibition during the 2025 exhibition \u201cAsia in the Heart of Ljubljana: The Life of the Sku\u0161ek Collection\u201d at the Slovene Ethnographic Museum, Photograph \u00a9 Max Fr\u00fchwirt 2025<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Budai seems to have attracted quite some interest among collectors in China in the early 20th<\/sup> 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 (T\u00f6rm\u00e4 2021: 54-59). While bronzes of Budai can be found in many Western collections today and rarely attract academic interest, the piece from the Sku\u0161ek Collection still deserves attention. The craftsmanship is excellent. The monk is dressed in a robe which displays the same motif as the \u201cArhat<\/strong><\/a>\u201d, namely the Auspicious Symbols of Buddhism.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Symbols visible on Budai’s robe, Photograph \u00a9 Slovene Ethnographic Museum 2025<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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References<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Motoh, Helena (2021). Lived in Museum: The Early 20th<\/sup> Century Sku\u0161ek Collection. In Asian Studies Vol. 9, No. 3: Special Issue: East Asia in Slovenia: Collecting, Practices, Categorization and Representation, 119-140.<\/p>

T\u00f6rm\u00e4. Minna (2021). Nordic Private Collections of Chinese Objects, Routledge, New York \u2013 Oxon.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Smiling sculpture on the table Text by Gerald Kozicz Among the most formal and official events which were documented inside the home of the Sku\u0161eks are the visit by the Dimitrijevi\u0107s, the adjutant of King Alexander and his wife, around 1926, and the short movie commissioned by the Yugoslavian Broadcasting Company in 1957. Budai on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1044,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-information"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iam.tugraz.at\/research\/skusek\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iam.tugraz.at\/research\/skusek\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iam.tugraz.at\/research\/skusek\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iam.tugraz.at\/research\/skusek\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iam.tugraz.at\/research\/skusek\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1043"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/iam.tugraz.at\/research\/skusek\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1051,"href":"https:\/\/iam.tugraz.at\/research\/skusek\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1043\/revisions\/1051"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iam.tugraz.at\/research\/skusek\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iam.tugraz.at\/research\/skusek\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iam.tugraz.at\/research\/skusek\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iam.tugraz.at\/research\/skusek\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}