17TH-18TH CENTURY

A related seven-headed gilt-bronze figure of Avalokiteshvara, with only twenty-four-arms, also holding an Amitabha Buddha above the topmost head, dated to 16th-17th century, is in the Chang Foundation, and is illustrated by James Spencer, Buddhist Images in Gilt Metal, Taipei, 1993, pp. 86-87, no. 36. A similar figure with ten heads and forty-six arms dated to Qing dynasty is in the Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Museum für Völkerkunde, West Germany, illustrated in Hai-wai Yi-chen (Chinese Art in Overseas Collections), Buddhist Sculpture II, p. 200, pl. 190. Another seven-headed figure, shown standing and dated to the cyclical xinwei year, corresponding to 1691, was sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 29 November 2017, lot 2922.