MING DYNASTY, 14TH-15TH CENTURY

Details

A LONGQUAN CELADON SHRINE OF THE SOUTH SEA GUANYIN
Ming dynasty, 14th-15th century
The figure of Guanyin wearing flowing robes, pendent jewelry, and an elaborate headdress, her face and hands left in the biscuit and painted with gold pigment, shown seated in a meditative pose on a dias below an arch of openwork scrolling clouds and barbed rocks, the wall behind pierced with openings at the sides and back, both sides of the grotto flanked by attendants in gestures of devotion, with a third figure kneeling on a lotus rising from the base molded in the form of lapping waves
13½in. (34.3cm.) high

Provenance

S. Marchant & Son, London.

Literature

S. Little, The Herzman Collection, Hong Kong, 2000, p. 31.

Exhibited

Realms of Faith, New York, Kaikodo, Spring 2000, no. 73.

Lot Essay

The South Sea Guanyin is a form of the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara particular to Chinese Buddhism. The legend explains that a young woman by the name of Miaoshan was martyred and transformed into a manifestation of Avalokitesvara for her piety, and thereafter resided at her South Sea island abode, Potalaka. See Kaikodo Journal, Spring 2000, no. 73.

Compare a shrine of similar size in the Illustrated Catalogue of the Tokyo National Museum: Chinese Ceramics, II, Tokyo, 1990, p. 20, no. 520; and another illustrated in Porcelains from the Tianjin Municipal Museum, Hong Kong, 1993, no. 68.

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