NORTHERN WEI DYNASTY, DATED BY INSCRIPTION TO AD 530

The treatment of the figure's robes and scarves, which flare outward in an animated fashion from the sides, is one of the distinctive styles seen during the Northern Wei, Eastern Wei and Western Wei periods. A similar treatment of the robes, with flaring, wing-tipped drapery, can be seen on the figure of a gilt-bronze luohan (14.6 cm. high) in the Fogg Museum, Cambridge, illustrated by H. Munsterberg, Chinese Buddhist Bronzes, Vermont/Tokyo, 1967, frontispiece, where it is dated Northern Wei dynasty. This depiction of the robes and scarves creates an abstract, linear pattern that obscures the body. The current figure is very similar to another bodhisattva which forms the center of a complex votive group in the Art Institute of Chicago, illustrated by Matsubara Saburo in Chugoku Bukkyo Chokokushi ron (The Path of Chinese Buddhist Sculpture),Tokyo, 1995, vol. 1, pl. 296, where it is dated Western Wei (AD 535-556), as it is by Jin Shen in Zhongguo lida; jinian foxiang tudian (Illustrated Chinese Buddha Images through the Ages), Beijing, 1995, p. 216, no. 158. Not only are the robes, scarves and necklace similar, but also the shape and features of the face and the crown with trailing ribbons. Like the current figure, the bodhisattva in the published group stands on a lotus base, but is surrounded by subsidiary figures, all raised on a stand with open sides that is inscribed with a dedicatory inscription by Kang Sheng dated to AD 539. A similar gilt-bronze figure with nearly identical treatement of robes and scarves was sold at Christie's New York, Treasures of the Noble Path: Early Buddhist Art from Japanese Collections, 14 September 2017, lot 812.