A Rare Well-Cast Gilt-Bronze Figure of Guanyin

14TH CENTURY

Details

A Rare Well-Cast Gilt-Bronze Figure of Guanyin
14th Century
Shown seated in rajalilasana with right arm gracefully resting on the right knee and left hand resting on top of a book, wearing a beaded pectoral necklace, long scarf draped over the shoulders and a skirt tied at the waist and falling in graceful folds around the lower body, also wearing a ribbon-hung diadem which frames the sensitively cast face
14.7/8in. (37.8cm.) high, base

Lot Essay

This unusual figure is related in pose and fineness of casting to a gilt-bronze bodhisattva of much larger size (150cm.) illustrated in Zhongguo lida jinian foxiang tudian (Illustrated Chinese Buddha Images through the Ages), Beijing, 1995, no. 312. For other related figures of smaller size see the bodhisattva in the British Museum included in the exhibition, Buddhism: Art and Faith, London, 1985, no. 298, where it is noted that between the 10th and 14th centuries it was popular to depict such figures seated in rajalilasana, p. 207. See, also, the bodhisattva in the Avery Brundage Collection, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, illustrated by d'Argencé in Chinese, Korean and Japanese Sculpture, San Francisco, 1974, no. 154. The first figure is dated to the Yuan dynasty, while the second figure is dated Yuan/early Ming dynasty. The present figure appears to have the remains of a crown, which may have been similar to that of the large gilt-bronze bodhisattva.

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