A gilt-bronze figure of Avalokiteshvara Tang dynasty | 唐 鎏金銅觀世音菩薩立像

This crisply cast figure depicts the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara standing in tribhanga in sumptuous dress, with fluttering scarves, a long dhoti and elaborate jewelry. It lacks the traditional small figure of Amitabha in the crown, but the presence of the kundika in the left hand identifies the subject as Avalokiteshvara. A similar figure in the Takenouchi Collection, Tokyo, is illustrated in Osvald Siren, Chinese Sculpture, vols I - II, Bangkok, 1998, pl. 418B, where it is attributed to the high Tang period. Another elegantly curved standing figure of Avalokiteshvara with very similar posture, dhoti, scarves, and facial expression in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is illustrated in Denise Patry Leidy and Donna Strahan, Wisdom Embodied: Chinese Buddhist and Daoist Sculpture collection, New Haven, 2010, cat. no. 19, accession number 42.25.27a, gift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller.