A LARGE LIMESTONE FIGURE OF AVALOKITESVARA

Details

A LARGE LIMESTONE FIGURE OF AVALOKITESVARA
TANG DYNASTY, 8TH CENTURY

The body finely modelled with characteristic sway to one side, tribhanga, the hair swept into an elaborate topknot behind the Amitabha, with pendulous ears to each side of the full round face, dressed in a sash draped across one side of the shoulder, the partially bare torso revealing an ornately linked beaded floral necklace, the lower garment material in cascades behind tied ribbons looped through a circular disc and falling onto the base between the bare feet, standing on a double lotus base (losses to extremities)
53 1/8 in. (130 cm.) high

Provenance

Yamanaka & Co., New York

Lot Essay

Compare the treatment of the garment and sash across the torso with a similar standing figure from Shanghai Museum, illustrated in Lost Statues of Longmen Cave, Shanghai, 1993, p. 68, no. 75; and another carved within a niche, illustrated by Matsubara Saburo, Chugoku Bukkyo Chokoku Silun, Japan, 1995, vol. III, p. 655.

The rounded full face, posture and suspension of the ribbons from the waist under the protruding belly are all comparable to a standing Bodhisattva dated to A.D. 895, from the Ching-ya T'ang Collection, illustrated in The Art of Contemplation - Religious Sculpture from Private Collections, National Palace Museum, Taibei, 1997, no. 80.

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