A LONGQUAN CELADON AND BISCUIT BUDDHIST SHRINE
A LONGQUAN CELADON AND BISCUIT BUDDHIST SHRINE

MING DYNASTY, 14TH-15TH CENTURY

Details
A LONGQUAN CELADON AND BISCUIT BUDDHIST SHRINE
MING DYNASTY, 14TH-15TH CENTURY
The figure of Guanyin left in the biscuit shown seated on a ledge within a grotto above a carved lotus spray and two acolytes standing on outcroppings of rock, the opening framed by scrolling leaves issuing from a moon above and on the sides by flowerheads and further scrolling leaves rising from a bird on one side and an amphora resting on a ledge on the other, with two circular apertures in the back, covered with a glaze of greenish-olive tone
10 1/8 in. (25.7 cm.) high, wood stand
Provenance
Mathias Komor, New York, February 1948.
Collection of William B. Jaffe, New York.

Lot Essay

The South Sea Guanyin is a form of the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara particular to Chinese Buddhism. The legend explains that a young woman by the name of Miaoshan was martyred and transformed into a manifestation of Avalokitesvara for her piety, and thereafter resided at her South Sea island abode, Potalaka. For a further discussion of the South Sea Guanyin see Kaikodo Journal, Spring 2000, pp. 224-5, no. 73, from the collection of Stanley Herzman, later sold in these rooms, 20 September 2002, lot 308. Another example, very similar to the present shrine, is illustrated fig. 1, p. 224.

See, also, a shrine of larger size in the Illustrated Catalogue of the Tokyo National Museum: Chinese Ceramics, II, Tokyo, 1990, p. 20, no. 520; and another illustrated in Porcelains from the Tianjin Municipal Museum, Hong Kong, 1993, no. 68.

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