The Guennol agate frog, Burma, Pyu, 10th century or later

The Guennol agate frog
Burma, Pyu, 10th century or later

Width 2 in., 5.1 cm

Condition Report:
As visible, there are flaws to the stone and typical bruises to the edges.

Catalogue Note:
In The Guennol Collection , author Usha Ramanrutham catalogues the item as being "10th century (?)". The frog has been formed out of brown agate with white striations. The patterns of the stone follow the form of the naturalistic frog. Bestowed with supernatural healing properties and a representation of fertility and security, amulets such as the following were most likely carried around.

Within collecting communities, the name ‘Guennol’ has become synonymous with exceptional artworks from the ancient world and beyond. The collection owes its discerning vision to Alastair Bradley (1915-2010) and Edith Park Martin (1917-1989). They chose the name Guennol, a Welsh word, which translates to “Martin”, as a tribute to time spent in Wales during their honeymoon. The Martin’s passion for objects transcended any one collecting category or time period; and their taste was highly personal and eclectic, ranging from ancient China to American folk art. The 1975 first volume publication of their collection produced by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, following an earlier 1969 exhibition of the collection, dedicates the book to “the fakers and counterfeiters without whom collecting would be considerably less challenging” – a fitting sentiment for two collectors entirely devoted to connoisseurship across multiple fields. A New York Times review for the 2000 exhibition of select works from the Guennol Collection, entitled ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’ described the collection has having a ‘a refreshing disregard for the usual categories of art history and an absolute insistence on the primacy of personal response. A result is an extremely diverse collection unified by a singular sensibility, a kind of psychological double self-portrait’.

The Martins’ enthusiasm for collecting was matched only by their generosity. They were consistently philanthropic in their approach to collecting and from the late 1940s, when they first began to collect, offered Guennol works as long-term loans and gifts to various public museums, including the Brooklyn Museum of Art, where Mr. Martin had been a trustee since 1948 and served as Chair of the Board of Trustees from 1984 to 1989, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which published two volumes of their collection, in 1975 and 1982.

Masterworks from the Guennol have been sold at auction, including the ‘Guennol Lioness’, a masterpiece of Elamite art which achieved a word record price of $57.2m in these rooms on 5th December 2007, lot 30; and the ‘Mahin Banu’ Yongle blue and white ‘grapes’ dish, also sold in these rooms for $5.1m, 17th March 2015, lot 264.

Provenance:
The Guennol Collection (collection of Alastair Bradley and Edith Martin), until 1983, and thence by descent.