An unusual bronze votive group of 'Watermoon' Guanyin China, Song Dynasty, 11th / 12th Century

the deity seated in lalitasana with left foot pendent upon an open lotus blossom, the right leg drawn up to support the resting arm on the knee, the face with meditative expression and the high chignon secured by a crown set with Buddha Amitabha, all within a large grotto of stylised rocks and seaweed supported on a high waisted rockwork pedestal flanked by further scrolls on a stepped rectangular pedestal with corner legs terminating in ruyi-head feet, set with a miniscule acolyte, Sudhana, standing at one corner dressed in long robes and a tall squared cap, raising aloft a pearl or other offering

The image of Avalokitesvara seated within a grotto representing Mount Potalaka is typically known as the 'Watermoon' Guanyin within Chinese, Korean and Japanese iconography, and is derived from a passage in the Avatamsaka Sutra, the 'Flower Garland' Sutra, which relates the spiritual journey of a youth, Sudhana, who is advised by the bodhisattva of Wisdom, Manjusri, to visit fifty-three different beings in his quest for ultimate truth. Sudhana's twenty-eighth encounter, with the bodhisattva of Compassion in his island abode, became an extremely influential passage in religious art upon its re-translation and dispersal in the eleventh and twelth centuries. Mount Potalaka was traditionally linked with Putuoshan Island, off the coast of Zhejiang province, see Qun Fangyu, Kuanyin: The Chinese Transformation of Avalokitesvara, New York, 2001, 353-406, although it has also been appropriated by other cultures, particularly in Korea. Compare a figure in similar pose, but lacking the grotto and Sudhana figure, in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. illustrated by Hugo Munsterberg, Chinese Buddhist Bronzes, Tokyo, 1967, pl.69. A similar figure was sold in our London rooms, 7th June 1988, lot 35.