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Lot Essay
There was little known information on Dali bronzes until the American scholar Helen Chapin published, in 1944, a scroll painting known as the Long Scroll of Buddhist Images by the late 12th century Yunnanese artist, Zhang Shengwen. The scroll is in the National Palace Museum Collection, Taipei, and bears two colophons dating to 1173-1175 and 1180. From the scroll, Chapin identified a group of similar bronzes in Western collections as those of Yunnan origin by comparing their styles and iconography. Further interests in Yunnanese bronzes developed when in the late 1970s an important find of Buddhist reliquary was found stored within the roof rafters of the Qianxun Pagoda. This group was discovered when restoration work was undertaken on the pagodas roof. One of the finds included a standing Guanyin, identical to the present figure in style (fig. 1). The discovered figure, 28 cm. high, was cast in solid gold and attached with a silver mandorla. For an illustration and discussion of the Yunnanese Guanyin, see A. Lutz, Buddhist Art in Yunnan, Orientations, February 1992, fig. 5, pp. 46-50.
Bronzes of this type were made for the Dali court and such images were also known in the Nanzhao tuzhuan scroll, dated to AD 947, in the Fujii Yurinkan Collection, Kyoto (fig. 2). The scroll illustrates the founding of the Nanzhao kingdom and recorded the local legend of this deity as the transformation of an Indian monk who as an incarnation of Guanyin visited Yunnan in the 7th century (see, A. Lutz, ibid, p. 48). This form was known as the Acuoye Guanyin, Ajaya Avalokitesvara or the All Victorious Guanyin. These figures were thought to have been cast as talismans for the royal family, W. Zwalf (ed.), Buddhism: Art and Faith, British Museum, 1985, p. 206; where the author illustrates a smaller figure in the British Museum (44.7 cm.), no. 206.
A similar bronze in the San Diego Museum of Art bears an inscription and a date between 1147-1172. See H. Chapin, Yunnanese Images of Avalokitesvara, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 8 1944-1995, pp. 131-186, pls. 3, 4, 5 and 6. Compare also the figure included in the exhibition, Treasures from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, China House Gallery, New York, 24 October-25 November 1979, no. 22; and two others from the Musee Guimet and the Freer Gallery of Art illustrated by H. Munsterberg, Chinese Buddhist Bronzes, Vermont and Japan, 1967, pls. 58 and 59 respectively.
Compare with two standing examples, the first with a later gilt-bronze lotus-form base was sold at Christies New York, 19 September 2007, lot 188; and the other with a later inscribed stand, bearing a jiwei cyclical year corresponding to 1919, was sold at Christies New York, 24 March 2011, lot 1294. A related example seated with one leg pendant in ardhaparyankasana, formerly from the Nitta Collection, was sold at Christies Hong Kong, 26 April 1998, lot 606.
Bronzes of this type were made for the Dali court and such images were also known in the Nanzhao tuzhuan scroll, dated to AD 947, in the Fujii Yurinkan Collection, Kyoto (fig. 2). The scroll illustrates the founding of the Nanzhao kingdom and recorded the local legend of this deity as the transformation of an Indian monk who as an incarnation of Guanyin visited Yunnan in the 7th century (see, A. Lutz, ibid, p. 48). This form was known as the Acuoye Guanyin, Ajaya Avalokitesvara or the All Victorious Guanyin. These figures were thought to have been cast as talismans for the royal family, W. Zwalf (ed.), Buddhism: Art and Faith, British Museum, 1985, p. 206; where the author illustrates a smaller figure in the British Museum (44.7 cm.), no. 206.
A similar bronze in the San Diego Museum of Art bears an inscription and a date between 1147-1172. See H. Chapin, Yunnanese Images of Avalokitesvara, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 8 1944-1995, pp. 131-186, pls. 3, 4, 5 and 6. Compare also the figure included in the exhibition, Treasures from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, China House Gallery, New York, 24 October-25 November 1979, no. 22; and two others from the Musee Guimet and the Freer Gallery of Art illustrated by H. Munsterberg, Chinese Buddhist Bronzes, Vermont and Japan, 1967, pls. 58 and 59 respectively.
Compare with two standing examples, the first with a later gilt-bronze lotus-form base was sold at Christies New York, 19 September 2007, lot 188; and the other with a later inscribed stand, bearing a jiwei cyclical year corresponding to 1919, was sold at Christies New York, 24 March 2011, lot 1294. A related example seated with one leg pendant in ardhaparyankasana, formerly from the Nitta Collection, was sold at Christies Hong Kong, 26 April 1998, lot 606.