18TH CENTURY OR LATER

Buddhist sculptures modelled in this form are known as the 'Water Moon Guanyin'. The name is a reference to Guanyin residing at Mount Potalaka on the southern coast of India and the imagery was introduced into China with the translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra in the 5th century. A comparable figure of Guanyin is published in Osvald Sirén, Chinese Sculptures in the von der Heydt Collection, Zürich, 1959, pp.158-159. See, for example the depiction of the bodhisattva in an anonymous painting attributed to the Song to Yuan dynasty, sold at Hong Kong Sotheby's, 6 October 2019, lot 2569.