A RARE STONE HEAD OF AVALOKITESHVARA, LIAO - JIN DYNASTY

Auction Closed

September 23, 08:35 PM GMT

Estimate

40,000 - 60,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

A RARE STONE HEAD OF AVALOKITESHVARA

LIAO - JIN DYNASTY

遼至金石雕觀音首像

sensitively carved with naturally rendered features, the rounded oval face portrayed with a serene expression, the straight broad nose rising to arched brows above downcast eyes and well-defined full lips, with the rounded cheeks flanked by pendulous earlobes, the neatly combed hair drawn up into an elegant chignon secured by an elaborate floral diadem centered with a seated Amitabha, traces of pigments and later-added gilt, mounted on stand (2)

Height 12¼ in., 31 cm

American Private Collection, acquired in New York in the 1920s, and thence by descent.

來源

美國私人收藏，1920年代購於紐約，此後家族傳承

Stone sculptures of Avalokiteshvara from this period are rare. Compare a large painted wood example, depicted wearing a similarly styled diadem centered with a seated Amitabha on lotus against a large circular mandorla, dated to the 8th year of Dading, corresponding to 1168, illustrated in Osvald Sirén, Chinese Sculpture from the Fifth to Fourteenth Century, New York, 1925, pl. 587. See also a pair of painted wood figures of standing Avalokiteshvara in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, dated to the 8th year of Mingchang (1195), adorned with an elaborate diadem in a similar style, published in Zhongguo meishu quanji. Wudai Song diaosu [The complete series of Chinese art. Five Dynasties and Song sculpture], vol. 5, Beijing, 1988, pl. 179; and a further painted stone example depicting the Purple-Bamboo Guanyin, from the Anyue Grottoes, Sichuan Province, illustrated in Angela Falco Howard et al., Chinese Sculpture, New Haven and London, 2006, fig. 4.26.

For examples with softly rendered features in a related style, see a polychrome wood figure of a bodhisattva from the collection of Robert H. Ellsworth, attributed to Song - Jin dynasty, sold at Christie's New York, 17th March 2015, lot 58; another in the Princeton University Art Museum, attributed to circa 1250, included in the museum's exhibition An Educated Eye: The Princeton University Art Museum Collection, Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, 2008; one from the Shanghai Museum, attributed to the Song dynasty, published in Ann Paludan, Chinese Sculpture. A Great Tradition, Chicago, 2006, p. 384, fig. 254; another from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, attributed to the Jin dynasty, included in the exhibition Masterworks in Wood: China and Japan, Portland Art Museum, Portland, 1976, cat. no. 13; and a stone head of a bodhisattva from the J.T. Tai Collection, attributed to the Liao/ Song dynasty, sold in these rooms, 22nd March 2011, lot 265.