A STANDING GILT-BRONZE FIGURE OF AN INFANT BUDDHA MING DYNASTY, 15TH CENTURY

the chubby baby standing barefoot and dressed in a dhoti tied at the chest , his right arm raised above his head with his index and middle finger pointing at the heavens, and his left art at his side with his index and middle finger pointing at the earth, in a sign of taking possession of the world,  the large bald head of the boy with a beatific smile with downcast eyes framed by long pendulous earlobes, originally mounted to a stand

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 René-Yvon Lefebvre d'Argencé 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.  Compare with another similar figure sold in our New York rooms, 22nd September 2004, lot 46.