LATE QING DYNASTY-REPUBLIC PERIOD, SIGNED XU YUNLIN

The seals Xu Yunlin zhi and Yunlin, impressed on the back of the current figure, are those of 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 closely related dehua Buddha formerly in the collection of John C. and Susan L. Huntington, also impressed with Xu Yunlin seals, was sold at Christie's New York, 23 September 2022, lot 1025.