Lot 113
113
A RARE ELEVEN-HEADED GILT-BRONZE FIGURE OF AVALOKITESVARA
VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus bu… Read more
A RARE ELEVEN-HEADED GILT-BRONZE FIGURE OF AVALOKITESVARA

MING DYNASTY (1368-1644)

Details
A RARE ELEVEN-HEADED GILT-BRONZE FIGURE OF AVALOKITESVARA
Ming dynasty (1368-1644)
Shown seated in dhyanasana, wearing a dhoti secured by a band around the waist and draping across the legs, the borders incised with lotus pattern repeated on the shawl draped over the shoulders, the celestial scarf wrapped around the arms falling to the lotus base, the primary hands held before the chest in vajra-anjalikarmamudra and a subsidiary pair held in the lap in dhyanamudra supporting an alms bowl, the remaining twenty pairs of arms fanning out from the shoulders and each hand either holding an attribute or positioned in a mudra, the twenty-first pair of hands raised to hold the figure of Amitabha on a lotus platform above three tiers of heads, the two lower tiers with three heads each, the top tier with a single head, attribute chips
12.5 in. (31.8 cm.) high
Special notice
VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium.

Lot Essay

Compare other related multi-headed, multi-armed figures of Guanyin, one from the Fuller Memorial Collection in the Seattle Art Museum, illustrated by Munsterberg, Chinese Buddhist Bronzes, pl. 72; another dated to the Qing dynasty is in the Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Museum für Völkerkunde, West Germany, illustrated in Hai-wai Yi-chen (Chinese Art in Overseas Collections), Buddhist Sculpture II, pl. 190; compare also the gilt-bronze figure in a similar posture, but with only twelve pairs of arms, in the Chang Foundation, illustrated by James Spencer, Buddhist Images in Gilt Metal, no. 36.

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