A RARE BRONZE FIGURE OF AVALOKITESVARA

DALI KINGDOM, 11TH/12TH CENTURY

Details

A RARE BRONZE FIGURE OF AVALOKITESVARA
dali kingdom, 11th/12th century
The slender figure standing with right hand in vitarkamudra and the left hand in varadamudra, with a florette-decorated belt encircling the waist above a rosette-secured sash tied around the hips of the closely fitting dhoti, with another sash draped across the hips and looped at the sides, also wearing foliate arm bands, a necklace and heavy pendant earrings, the face cast with flattened features below a figure of Amitabha Buddha flanked by cords looped in and out of the bands binding the tall domed hair, with rectangular aperture in the back and a rectangular patch in the back of the lower body, with blackish patina
18.1/8 in. (46 cm.) high, stand

Lot Essay

This figure is stylistically similar to other figures of this unusual group of bronzes, including a bronze in the San Diego Museum bearing an inscription ascribing a Yunnanese provenance and a date between 1147 and 1172. See Helen Chapin, ;'Yunnanese Images of Avalokitesvara', Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol.8, (1944-5), pp.131-186, pls.3, 4, 5 and 6. Compare also the gilt-bronze example included in the exhibition, Treasures from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, China House Galllery, New York, 24 October- 25 November, 1979, Catalogue, no.22 pp.32-33; and two others from the Muse Guimet and the Freer Gallery of Art illustrated by Hugo Munsterberg, Chinese Buddhist Bronzes, Vermont and Japan, 1967, pl.58 and 59 respectively. Both Chapin and Munsterberg discuss the Indian influences visible in these figures: the bare chest, slender body, tight-fitting skirt and conical treatment of the hair.

The result of Oxford Authentication Ltd thermoluminescence test, no. N198d1, is consistent with the dating of this lot.

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