This figure appears to bear features that certainly began in depictions of Bodhisattvas during the Tang dynasty, such as the similarly sashed bows and pleated or ruffled neckline of the tunic found on a large standing figure of a Bodhisattva, dated to late Tang, illustrated in the Catalogue of the Museum van Aziatische Kunst, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, no. 78, pl. 10.

The slightly fuller, but still very graceful form and the shape of the face and features, however, place this figure later in the evolution of the Bodhisattva figure to the 12th/13th centuries. Cf. a similar yet much larger example such as the one illustrated by Alan Priest, Chinese Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1974, pl. CXI, cat. no. 64; one illustrated by Rawson, The British Museum Book of Chinese Art, fig. 111; another illustrated by Huou-Ming-Tse, Preuves des Antiquities de Chine, p. 301; one offered in these Rooms, 29 September 1992, lot 897 with a similar collar; and another sold in our New York Rooms, 29 November 1990, lot 63 with similar billowing drapery at the sleeves.

(US$85,000-95,000)