A large gilt-bronze seated figure of Avalokiteshvara, Late Ming dynasty

Sotheby's Hong Kong, 1st November 1999, lot 535.

Hong Kong Private Collection.

Sotheby's London, 6th November 2013, lot 195.

The heavily lidded eyes and slightly upturned, smiling mouth, alongside the gestures of giving and reassurance in which the hands are held, imbue the present figure with a sense of serenity and benevolence characteristic of Chinese Buddhist images. The presence of the diminutive images of Amitabha in the headdress helps to identify the figure as Avalokiteshvara (known in Chinese as Guanyin), the bodhisattva of compassion and one of the most popular deities in the Buddhist pantheon. In contrast to the Tibetan Buddhist mode of representation that was popular in the imperial court in the early Ming dynasty, the present work follows a more conventionally Chinese style, with the wide, round face and slightly androgenous features. The figure is richly adorned with a multistrand necklace with ruyi-form pendant, lotiform earrings, and elaborate crown, and is garbed in flowing robes with lotus-scroll hems which evoke the decoration of Ming blue-and-white porcelain and other contemporary media.

Compare with a slightly smaller-scale figure of Avalokiteshvara, sold in these rooms, 18th September 2023, lot 116, as well as a slightly larger figure sold at Christie's London, 15th May 2018, lot 166. Both examples depict the bodhisattva holding a small cup in the left hand and the right held in vitarka mudra, in contrast to our figure which is depicted with the hands held in abhaya and varada mudras. Such variations were relatively common in Chinese Buddhist images, which were less iconographically prescriptive than Tibetan Buddhist imagery.