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Lot Essay
The guanding yin, or abhiseka mudra, is used only by esoteric sects during rites of initiation, usually for the entry of a novice monk into the Buddhist order.
For an example similar to the present piece, see the gilt-bronze figure in the Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Museum für Völkerkunde, Germany, illustrated in Haiwai Yichen, Buddhist Sculpture II, p. 185, pl. 175. Compare, also, the elaborate headdress of this figure with the seated Maitreya in the Nitta Collection, illustrated in The Crucible of Compassion and Wisdom, Taipei, 1987, p. 214, no. 117.
The floral scrolls on the base and along the garment edges on this figure are closely related to those found on late Yuan and Ming period porcelain, particularly lotuses with fish-tail like petals.
For an example similar to the present piece, see the gilt-bronze figure in the Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Museum für Völkerkunde, Germany, illustrated in Haiwai Yichen, Buddhist Sculpture II, p. 185, pl. 175. Compare, also, the elaborate headdress of this figure with the seated Maitreya in the Nitta Collection, illustrated in The Crucible of Compassion and Wisdom, Taipei, 1987, p. 214, no. 117.
The floral scrolls on the base and along the garment edges on this figure are closely related to those found on late Yuan and Ming period porcelain, particularly lotuses with fish-tail like petals.