J.J. Lally & Co., Oriental Art / New York City, New York

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Past Exhibition

Buddhist Sculpture from Ancient China

March 10-31, 2017

A GILT BRONZE FIGURE OF AVALOKITESVARA
11.
A GILT BRONZE FIGURE OF AVALOKITESVARA

Sui Dynasty (581-618)

the bodhisattva shown holding a willow branch in the raised right hand and a water vessel in the left hand held down at the hip, the head turned very slightly to one side and backed by a separate mandorla cast with tongues of flame around the openwork halo, the black-painted hair behind a simple diadem decorated with ribbons tied over the ears, wearing long beaded chains hanging from the shoulders and looped below the knees, a loosely pleated dhoti tied at the waist and a shawl over the shoulders with long ends draped over the arms and flaring out in pointed folds on either side of the bare feet, raised on a tiered columnar base, all richly gilded, showing traces of original pigment including bright red at the lips and with scattered green malachite corrosion.

Height 10 inches (25.4 cm)

A gilt bronze figure of Avalokitesvara on tiered base cast in the same style, holding the same attributes, and with a very similar mandorla, is illustrated by Leidy and Strahan, Wisdom Embodied: Chinese Buddhist and Daoist Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2010, pp. 86-87, no. 12, dated to the late 6th century by the authors and described as one of the earliest known examples of this unusual iconography. The same sculpture was previously published by several different scholars including Sirén, Chinese Sculpture from the Fifth to the Fourteenth Centuries, Vols. I-II., New edition, Bangkok, 1998, pl. 278.

隋 鎏金銅觀音像 高 25.4 厘米

Additional Images (Touch to enlarge)

11.
A GILT BRONZE FIGURE OF AVALOKITESVARA

Sui Dynasty (581-618)

Height 10 inches (25.4 cm)

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