Japanese Showa Era Sugi Wood Carved Daruma Bodhidharma Sculpture Root Wood Base 17"H LS#089

Monumental hand-carved sugi root wood sculpture of Daruma, the First Patriarch of Zen Buddhism

Japan | Showa Period, mid-20th century

A powerful and accomplished hand-carved sculpture in sugi (Japanese cedar), depicting Daruma (達磨) — Bodhidharma, the Indian Buddhist monk who brought Chan/Zen Buddhism from India to China in the 5th–6th century and became one of the most iconic figures in East Asian religious and folk culture. The figure emerges dramatically from the natural root and burl mass of the sugi base, the carver exploiting the grain, color variation, and organic contours of the wood to integrate figure and ground in the manner of the best Japanese root carving tradition. Daruma is shown in his characteristic intense aspect — bald pate, fierce penetrating gaze beneath heavy brows, long flowing beard, prayer beads (juzu) across the chest, and robes billowing in dynamic swirling folds that merge into the surrounding rocky landscape. The warm honey-gold tones of the polished sugi heartwood contrast with the darker, rougher textures of the unworked root base, giving the sculpture a dramatic natural vitality that no purely fabricated material could replicate.

Daruma occupies a singular place in Japanese culture, spanning the sacred and the secular. As the legendary founder of Zen — said to have meditated facing a wall for nine years until his arms and legs withered away — he became the symbolic embodiment of perseverance, determination, and spiritual focus. This origin story gave rise to the beloved daruma doll tradition: the weighted, legless papier-mâché figures used throughout Japan as good-luck talismans for goal-setting, their eyes filled in one at a time as wishes are pursued and fulfilled. Images of Daruma appear across Japanese art from the Muromachi period onward — in ink painting, woodblock prints, ceramics, and sculpture — always charged with the dual energy of fierce spiritual intensity and popular accessibility. A sculpture of this scale and ambition would have occupied a place of honor in a tokonoma alcove or entry hall.

Dimensions: 17"W × 10"D × 17"H (43 × 25 × 43 cm) Condition: Very good. Natural checks and splits in the sugi root base consistent with the material and inherent to large-format root carving. Surface polish intact. No losses to the carved figure.