A gilt-bronze figure of a Bodhisattva, Tang dynasty

Japanese Private Collection.

Tokubetsutenji Zui Tou Jidai no Kondobutsu [Special Exhibition Gilt Bronze Buddhas in Sui-Tang Dynasty], Kuboso Memorial Museum, Izumi, 1993, cat. no. 183.

《特別展示 隋唐時代の金銅仏》, 和泉市久保惣記念美術館, 1993年, 編號183

It is difficult to identify this exquisitely cast gilt-bronze bodhisattva precisely, but the cintamani (wish-fulfilling jewel) held in the left hand may allow an attribution to Avalokiteshvara. For another small gilt figure in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession number 1985.214.142), see Denise Patry Leidy and Donna Strahan, Wisdom Embodied: Chinese Buddhist and Daoist Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New Haven, 2010, cat. no. A33.

Compare a similar gilt-bronze figure, depicted seated with the hands in similar positions and with similar treatment of the garments and drapery, illustrated in Arts of the Sui and Tang Dynasties, Osaka Municipal Museum of Fine Art, Osaka, 1977, cat. no. 3-67, and also a figure sold in these rooms, 23rd September 2020, lot 590.