LATE QING-REPUBLIC PERIOD

The two seals Xu Yunlin zhi, which appear on the back of this figure of Buddha, refer to the potter Xu Youyi (1887-1949). According to J. Ayers in Blanc de Chine, Divine Images in Porcelain, New York, 2002, p. 121, Xu was a follower of the potter Su Xuejin, and came from a family of carvers of wood and clay figures. Xu’s skill at emanating the work of the early potters at Dehua is evidenced in works such as the standing Buddha in the aforementioned exhibition, p. 121., no. 72, and it is no surprise that P. J. Donnelly, one of the earliest scholars of Dehua porcelain, considered Xu to be a late 18^th-century potter. For further information on the life of Xu Youyi see R.H. Blumenfield, Blanc de Chine, The Great Porcelain of Dehua, Berkeley, 2002, p. 145.

A similar figure of Buddha shown standing with his right hand in the bhumisparsa mudra, from the Richard Lehman Gray Collection, is illustrated by J. Ayers in Blanc de Chine, Divine Images in Porcelain, New York, 2002, p. 121, no. 72. A large Dehua figure of Buddha seated on a high lotus base with three seals of Xu Yunlin was sold at Christie’s New York, 22-23 September 2022, lot 1025, and a large Dehua standing figure of Guanyin, with two seals of Xu Yunlin, was sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 1 June 2016, lot 3330.