EARLY 17TH CENTURY, HE CHAOZONG IMPRESSED SEAL MARK

Unlike the factories at Jingdezhen, porcelain production at Dehua was not under Imperial supervision; reign marks were therefore rarely used, and instead potters sometimes impressed their own seals or workshops marks. Some of these marked pieces have come to enjoy great prestige among collectors, most notably the works of He Chaozong. His Guanyin figures are graceful and serene, often with finely detailed accessories such as the fine ruyi hairpin, necklace, and elegant figures of the present example. Despite his renown, little is known about the potter, but modern scholarship now considers a late Ming dynasty/17th century date to be most likely for his dates of activity.

A closely related figure of Guanyin, also with a He Chaozong mark, and seated in the same posture with a scroll and hairpin, but atop a reed mat, was included in the exhibition at the China Institute Gallery and illustrated by J. Ayers, Blanc de Chine: Divine Images in Porcelain, New York, 2002, p. 83, no. 34.