J.J. Lally & Co., Oriental Art / New York City, New York
MenuPast Exhibition
Buddhist Sculpture from Ancient China
March 10-31, 2017
13.
A GILT BRONZE FIGURE OF ELEVEN-HEADED GUANYIN
Tang Dynasty, 7th – Early 8th Century
shown standing in tribhanga pose with one hip slightly cocked, wearing a thin dhoti loosely tied with a sash at the waist and a pendant on a simple necklace on the chest, holding a chauri (fly whisk) in the raised right hand and an amrita bottle with a lotus bloom rising from a tall stalk in the left hand, the principal head of the bodhisattva well cast with delicate features set in a compassionate gaze and crowned by a pyramidal arrangement of ten small heads, with long scarves draped over the shoulders and trailing down on either side of the bare feet on an hourglass-form pedestal decorated with radiating lotus petals and raised on a five-tier stepped base resting on a separate hexagonal table-shaped platform with high open sides, the figure backed by a separate openwork petal-shaped mandorla bordered by pointed flames rising from the ankles to a curved and pointed tip above the head, and with an inner framework of scrolling lotus centered by a circular halo, the gilding well preserved throughout, with scattered areas of bright green malachite encrustation.
Height 11 3⁄4 inches (30 cm)
A similar Tang dynasty gilt bronze figure of Eleven-Headed Guanyin (Ekadasamukha Avalokitesvara) on hourglass-form pedestal raised on a table-shaped platform and backed by a petal-shaped mandorla in the Shanghai Museum is illustrated in Zhongguo wenwu jinghua daquan: qingtong juan (The Compendium of Chinese Art: Bronzes), Hong Kong, 1994, p. 356, no. 1274.
Another similar Tang dynasty gilt bronze figure of Eleven-Headed Guanyin is illustrated by Gabbert in Bestandskatalog des Museums Für Ostasiatische Kunst der Stadt Köln, Buddhistische Plastik Aus China und Japan, Wiesbaden, 1972, pp. 304-305, no. 93.
Compare also the gilt-bronze figure of Eleven-Headed Guanyin without mandorla, illustrated in Homage to Heaven, Homage to Earth: Chinese Treasures of the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, 1992, p. 169, no. 97.
唐 鎏金銅十一面觀音像 高 30 厘米
