A RARE GILT-BRONZE SEATED FIGURE OF GUANYIN

LATE YUAN/EARLY MING DYNASTY, 14TH-15TH CENTURY

細節

A RARE GILT-BRONZE SEATED FIGURE OF GUANYIN
LATE YUAN/EARLY MING DYNASTY, 14TH-15TH CENTURY
The bodhisattva crisply cast and shown seated in rajalilasana with left leg pendent and resting on a recumbent qilin, the right arm extended atop the right knee, with a pearl held in the right hand, wearing a long flowing scarf, a dhoti gathered by a sash around the waist and a multi-strand necklace, the face finely cast with gentle, contemplative expression, the hair worn in a tall curved loop and in long knotted plaits falling onto the shoulders, and adorned with a tall five-pointed foliate crown centered in front by a figure of Amitabha Buddha, the figure seated on an ungilded integral rocky base
11 3/8 in. (28.8 cm.) high

拍品專文

Perhaps the most popular figure of the Buddhist pantheon during the Yuan/Ming period was the bodhisattva Guanyin (Avalokitesvara). One of the common depictions of this bodhisattva is the so-called 'Water-Moon Guanyin,' or 'Avalokitesvara of the Southern Seas,' which shows the figure seated in rajalilasana, or 'Royal Ease', on a base mimicking a rocky shore. In the Linden-Museum, Stuttgart, there is another Yuan/early Ming gilt-bronze figure of Guanyin shown seated on an integral ungilded base modelled as a rocky shore similar to that of the present figure, illustrated in Ferne Völker Frühe Zeiten, 1982, p. 257, no. F59.

Similar depictions of elaborate festoons of jeweled chains can be found on other gilt-bronze images of Guanyin dated to the late Yuan/early Ming period, such as the figure from the Oppenheim Collection, now in the British Museum, illustrated by W. Zwalf, ed., Buddhism: Art and Faith, London, 1985, no. 298; a figure in The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, illustrated in Hai-wa yi-zhen: Chinese Art in Overseas Collections - Buddhist Sculpture, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1990, p. 178, no. 164; and a third figure in the Museum of Eastern Art, Oxford, illustrated in T.O.C.S., 1959-1960, vol. 32, pl. 102, no. 236. All three of these figures share many common characteristics with the present figure, such as the radiating beaded chains, narrow waist and flowing style of drapery. All three figures are also shown seated in rajalilasana, which appears to have been a fashionable posture from the 10th to 14th centuries.