- 429
遼 銅鎏金觀音立像
描述
- bronze
來源
Condition
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.
拍品資料及來源
The Khitan people who lived along the Liao River valley, along the frontiers of the Chinese empire, had been vassals of the Tang dynasty. Through this unstable relationship they had become familiar with Buddhism. They originally practiced animistic shamanism, but according to Frederick W. Mote in Imperial China, 900-1800, Harvard, 2003, p. 82, within a few decades of the Khitans founding the Liao dynasty, Buddhism had become the most visible religion in their historical records. The Buddhist figures left by the Khitans display a continuation of Tang dynasty styles.
One reason for Buddhism's popularity among the Khitan was the religion's focus on mercy and compassion, as personified by Avalokiteshvara, known in Chinese as Guanyin. The Buddhist teaching that the taking of life was a great evil appealed to warrior societies, whose daily lives were often surrounded by killing and acts of cruelty.
The most important school of Buddhism during the Liao dynasty was the Huayan School whose main center was at Wutai Shan near Datong. The Huayan monastery located in the heart of ancient Datong and still extant, contains large clay bodhisattvas dated to 1038, which relate stylistically to the present lot.
For a seated gilt-bronze example of Avalokiteshvara with a similar tall crown and trailing ribbons in the Rijksmuseum in the Netherlands, see Chinese Art in Overseas Collections (Hai-wai yi-chen), Buddhist Sculpture I, Taipei, 1998, no. 146. A similar standing example which is ascribed a Song dynasty date is illustrated in The Crucible of Compassion and Wisdom, Taipei, 1987, p. 195, pl. 99, and an example from in the collection of the Palace Museum Beijing is illustrated in Denise Patry Leidy and Donna Strahan, Wisdom Embodied: Chinese Buddhist and Daoist Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2010, p. 18. A related Liao dynasty figure of Vairocana is illustrated, ibid, p. 122-123, and a related Liao dynasty standing of Buddha was sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 8th October 2013, lot 3292.