Property from the Collection of Abolala Soudavar

A large polychrome-painted and gilt-lacquered wood figure of Avalokiteshvara | 木漆金加彩觀音坐像

Auction Closed

September 21, 06:54 PM GMT

Estimate

20,000 - 30,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

A large polychrome-painted and gilt-lacquered wood figure of Avalokiteshvara

木漆金加彩觀音坐像



Height 40¼ in., 102 cm

Sotheby's New York, 22nd September 2004, lot 36 (sold as Yuan dynasty).


紐約蘇富比2004年9月22日,編號36(斷代元)

Seated on a rockwork base in lalitasana with the right leg drawn up and the left leg folded beneath, the present lot depicts the Avalokiteshvara of the Southern Seas, or the Nanhai Guanyin, in an elegantly relaxed pose. The figure is depicted with a serene meditative expression with the large rounded face set with elongated eyes and a small bud mouth, all below a concave urna. Dressed in loose skirts spreading over the base, the torso is bare but for a shawl across the shoulders, adorned with an elaborate jeweled pectoral set with a pendent lotus flower and a long chain set with a dharmacakra. This languid sculptural form of the princely bodhisattva finds its predecessors in polychrome-painted wood or gilt bronze depictions of Guanyin that were widely popular during the tenth to fourteenth century.


The iconography of Nanhai Guanyin was known in China since the early fifth century with the translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra (Huayan jing) from Sanskrit: the text describes the bodhisattva residing at his mythical dwelling on Mount Potalaka in the southern Indian seas. Overtime, the deity became known as one of mercy and compassion, answering prayers and protecting the faithful from catastrophe.


For stylistically similar examples from the Yuan dynasty, see a gilt and painted figure, with the proper left hand resting against a stand, sold at Christie’s New York, 2nd June 1989, lot 95; another, with one leg pendent, in the British Museum, London, is illustrated in Hai-wai Yi-chen: Chinese Art in Overseas Collections, Buddhist Sculpture I, Taipei, 1986, pl. 162. Additionally, a figure attributed to the Song / Yuan dynasty, previously in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, was sold at Christie’s New York, 16th September 1998, lot 290.

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