Belle et grande figure de Bodhisattva en bronze Dynastie Ming, XVE siècle | 明十五世紀 銅菩蕯坐像 | A finely cast large bronze figure of Bodhisattva, Ming Dynasty, 15th century

The bodhisattva is seated in the meditation posture (vajraparyankasana) adorned with regal jewellery, and a billowing scarf draped over the shoulders and falling from the lower arms to the lotus pedestal below. The right hand, held in the teaching gesture (vitarka mudra), holds the stem of a lotus at the right shoulder with a ruyi head symbolising the Buddhist wish-fulfilling jewel (triratna): the flower at the left shoulder supports a scroll representing the Perfection of Wisdom sutra (prajnaparamita), suggesting the iconography of Manjushri, the Lord of Wisdom. The crown type, the beaded chain jewellery, the billowing scarf and the loosely draped robes are done in a stylistic continuum of early Ming sculptural traditions established in the Yongle (1403-1424) and Xuande period (1426-1435).

Unlike the early Ming examples the statue is not gilded: cf. a Chinese non-gilt copper alloy Avalokiteshvara with a Chenghua (1465-1487) reign mark at Poly International Auctions, Beijing, December 1, 2007, lot 979, see Michael Henss, Buddhist Art in Tibet, Ulm, 2008, p. 224, fig. 56: and a Chinese non-gilt copper alloy Tara from the second half of the 15th century sold in Sotheby’s Paris, 11 June 2019, lot 24. Close stylistic comparisons with the Chenghua Avalokiteshvara and the Sotheby’s Tara suggest that this example dates to the second half of the 15th century.