A gilt bronze figure of the Infant Buddha China, Ming Dynasty

the divine child standing with both index fingers on long arms pointing in opposing directions towards Heaven and Earth, naked but for an apron cast with a large writing dragon chasing a 'flaming' pearl, secured above his large rump by tied ribbons, his large bald head set with wide open eyes and impish smile

Depictions of Sakyamuni as a child, pointing to the sky with his left index finger and to the ground with his right, do not yet show the usnisa, the protruberance of the skull, which is perhaps the most important of the thirty-two outward signs of a Buddha, since this is considered the one that was acquired last. A similar figure wearing a flower-decorated apron in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, is illustrated in Ren?Yvon Lefebvre d'Argenc? Chinese, Korean and Japanese Sculpture in the Avery Brundage Collection, San Francisco, 1974, pl.185, where the textual origin of the iconography, related to the first Seven Steps of Buddha Sakyamuni, is discussed.