The NYC Sideshow of The European Fine Art Fair

choi

Jason Farago, From Chinese Sentries to a Bull That Carries Your Ale. A venerable arts fair comes to the Park Avenue Armory. Here are a few highlights. New York Times, Oct 27, 2017.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/ ... -avenue-armory.html

Note:
(a) "The European Fine Art Fair, known as TEFAF and held every March in the southern Dutch city of Maastricht, had a reputation for stability: the same dealers year after year, bringing their choicest paintings, furniture, and diamond brooches to a well-heeled collector base. But a roiling art market, and increasingly eclectic tastes, led the Dutch fair to set out for New York — and to establish a pair of satellite events, spring and fall, that brought the gentility of Maastricht to a new American crowd.  The autumn fair, whose second edition opens this weekend at the Park Avenue Armory * * * "
(i) Maastricht
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maastricht
(famous for Maastricht Treaty (signed in 1992 to establish European Union (from European Community) and create euro currency); section 1.1 Etymology)
(ii) Park Avenue Armory "is a nonprofit cultural institution within the historic Seventh Regiment Armory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventh_Regiment_Armory
building located at 643 Park Avenue," New York City.  Wikipedia.

(b) “CHARLES EDE * * * this London dealer has brought something * * * a Persian rhyton, or ceremonial drinking vessel, that dates to around 1000 BC. The terra cotta vessel takes the shape of a zebu bull, and though it would have served a ritual purpose, its simplified forms curve with the easy elegance that Picasso would lavish on bovines nearly 3,000 years later. Hundreds of decorative scratches run from his horns to his hindquarters, and two metal earrings, on either side of the vessel’s spout, make this an uncommonly punk antiquity.

Zebu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebu
(originating in South Asia; characterised by a fatty hump on their shoulders

(c) "VANDERVEN ORIENTAL ART[:] Within a diverse and sumptuous display of Chinese porcelain and statuary, this Dutch specialist gallery has brought an alluring pair of Tang dynasty stone lokapalas, or tomb guardians. These sentries between this world and the next wear ornate body armor — frond-shaped helmet crests and flaming epaulets — and raise their legs to stomp on ill-fated evil ghouls. Now they appear the color of coral, but look closely at their breastplates and spaulders, and you can still see traces of green and red paint that would have made these sentinels appear even more fearsome."
(i) lokapala
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lokapala

has no Chinese translation.
(ii) breastplate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breastplate
(iii)
(A) spaulder (n): "a pauldron, especially one for protecting only a shoulder"
www.dictionary.com/browse/spaulder
(B) spaulder
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaulder
(photo)

This word does not appear in Merriam-webster.com  or Oxforddictionaries.com.
(C) pauldron
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauldron
("evolved from spaulders in the 15th century. As with spaulders, pauldrons cover the shoulder area. Pauldrons tend to be larger than spaulders," covering part of upper arm)

(d) "[photo caption:] The 'Blue Map of The World,' China, 1811. Credit Daniel Crouch Rare Books[.]  In the late 18th century, about a thousand years after an anonymous Chinese sculptor carved those tomb guardians, the mapmaker Huang Qianren completed a stunning map of the world for the Qianlong Emperor. The edition here, more than seven feet long and printed in a brilliant blue, depicts the Middle Kingdom as a dynamic network of cities and town hooked up by waterways, and cradled by bumpy seas. China takes up nearly all the surface of this 'world' map, and the Qing dynasty’s trading partners of Britain and the Netherlands are nearly forgotten in a corner; for this mapmaker, as for his imperial patron, anything beyond China barely counted as civilization at all."
(i) 黄千人, 大清万年一统天下全图. 1767.
(A) 香港将拍卖《大清万年一统天下全图》 显示中国版图. 中新网, May 28, 2014
http://www.chinanews.com/ga/2014/05-28/6223602.shtml
("28日，香港普艺拍卖有限公司展示一幅乾隆32年(即1767年)制订的《大清万年一统天下全图》 * * * 长115厘米，阔106厘米，是由黄千人 [字证孙] 在1767年负责制订，图中列明琉球国、安南国(越南古称)均是大清附属国。 * * * 将于31日举行拍卖，由港币5万元起拍。此图伴随着一位香港资深藏家近30年")
(B) 黃時鑒, 地圖上的 '天下觀.' 人民網, July 26, 2009.
http://politics.people.com.cn/BI ... 163638/9723420.html
("該圖為清乾隆三十二年（1767年）黃証孫編繪的《大清萬年一統天下全圖》的放大增補本，繪於清嘉慶十五年（1810年）。地圖為雙色套印，由24塊拼合而成。地圖縱134厘米，橫236厘米。在圖幅周邊分別標注出蔥嶺（古代對帕米爾高原、昆侖山、喀喇昆侖山脈西部諸山的總稱）、大西洋、俄羅斯、身毒國（古印度別譯）、暹羅國、日本、朝鮮等。  現藏北京圖書館")
(C) 大清萬年一統地理全圖.
digitalatlas.asdc.sinica.edu.tw/map_detail.jsp?id=A103000047
(徐志導, 大清萬年一統地理全圖, 1814–1816 (130 x 229cm: 8塊印張拼合; 典藏單位: [US] Library of Congress) )
(ii) National Palace Museum (Taiwan) also has a map of the same name, made in "嘉慶年間."
(iii) These above may not be enlarged, so it is hard ti tell whether Britain or the Netherlands are depicted. However, no description of these maps mentions these two nations. So perhaps the New York Times made a mistake here.