Page 84 - Christies Alsdorf Collection Part 1 Sept 24 2020 NYC

崇聖御寶 - 詹姆斯及瑪麗蓮 ·阿爾斯多夫珍藏

iconography that appeared before the White Robed paintings of Guanyin seated in the pose of royal ease are
Guanyin and served as a prototype for the latter. tenth-century banners from Dunhuang, as witnessed by
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the well-known painting in the British Museum and by
Called youxizuo in Chinese, the pose of royal ease—a the AD 943-dated painting at the Musée Guimet, Paris. 25
literal translation of the Sanskrit terms lalitasana,
rajalalitasana, and maharajalalitasana, the several terms Although early Chinese sculptures of Buddhist deities
denoting the exact placement and arrangement of the seated in royal ease are rare, a mid-eighth-century
legs—traces its origins to ancient India. Stupa-drum- bronze sculpture in the Nelson-Atkins Museum,
facing slabs and embellished roundels on railing crossbars Kansas City (F88-37/52), portraying Guanyin Seated
from the great stupa at Amaravati, in Andhra Pradesh, on Mount Potalaka, represents the Tang interpretation
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dating to the second and third centuries AD often of the subject. In fact, according to the late Wladimir
present figures seated in the pose of royal ease. In fact, Zwalf (1932–2002), formerly a keeper at the British
a second-century crossbar roundel from Amaravati and Museum, the earliest archaeologically attested and thus
now in the British Museum depicts King Suddhodana, reliably datable Chinese sculpture of a bodhisattva seated
the Buddha’s father, so seated during a visit to Queen in royal ease is a finely cast gilt bronze made during
Maya, the Buddha’s mother, in the Asoka Grove the tenth century in the Wu-Yue Kingdom in eastern
in Lumbini, thus giving literal meaning to the term China and excavated from the Wanfo pagoda, Jinhua,
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“pose of royal ease”. The pose frequently was used in Zhejiang province.
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portraying deities in the sculpture of most subsequent
periods of Indian history and gradually spread to all the The earliest images of the White-Robed Guanyin,
lands and cultures where Buddhism reached. whether painted or sculpted, show a close resemblance
to that on a 1664-dated stone stele in the Xi’an Beilin
Although the specific reasons that Chinese Buddhists which purports to preserve the likeness of a painting
adopted the pose of royal ease beginning in the late by the revered Tang master Wu Daozi (AD 689–759);
Tang and Five Dynasties (AD 907–960) periods remain the stele’s inscription by Zuo Chongyao states that
unknown, they likely reflect an effort to make the the full-length image of Guanyin was copied by one
previously rather remote deity more approachable by Ye Chengtiao in 1664 after a painting by Wu Daozi
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worshippers. The Chinese used royal-ease pose mainly and then engraved on the stele. The earliest known,
for Guanyin, whether as the Water-Moon Guanyin, securely dated sculptures of the White-Robed Guanyin
the White-Robed Guanyin, the Guanyin of the South are two small figurines of painted clay, each measuring
Seas, or other manifestations. The pose’s adoption and 38.0 cm in height, excavated from a relic chamber
new-found popularity correlates with the rise of Chan on the third floor of the Ruiguang pagoda in Suzhou
Buddhism in China, the sect better known in the together with a wooden box with the inscribed date
West by the Japanese name Zen. Revering the Buddha of 1013 (all now in the Suzhou Museum). The two
Amitabha and seeking rebirth in his Western Paradise— identical figurines are meticulously painted and show
formally known in Sanskrit as Sukhavati, in Chinese as the bodhisattva with a white cowl covering the head and
Xifang Jile Jingtu, and in English as the Western Pure the body down to the knees and with colorful clothing
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Land of Ultimate Bliss—Chan Buddhists typically prayed beneath it. Like the image engraved on the 1664
to Amitabha, chanted his name, and sought intercession stone stele, the bodhisattvas stand, and they clasp prayer
on their behalf by Guanyin, his spiritual emanation. In beads in their lowered hands, which are crossed at the
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making supplications to Guanyin, Chan Buddhists likely wrists. The earliest extant, large-scale stone sculpture
came to prefer representations of the deity that were of the White-Robed Guanyin is the well-preserved relief
more welcoming and approachable than the formal, sculpture in the Yanxia Cave in Hangzhou’s Southern
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somewhat austere depictions characteristic of earlier eras. Hills; measuring 1.85 meters in height and dating to
the tenth or eleventh century, the relief is closely akin
Chinese artists first employed the royal ease pose in both to the purported image by Wu Daozi and to the
describing Buddhist figures in the eighth and ninth two excavated, early eleventh-century, painted clay
centuries, as evinced by a ninth-century portable figures. Among the earliest gilt-bronze sculptures of the
painting from Dunhuang depicting the Bodhisattva White-Robed Guanyin seated in royal ease is the Five
Manjushri Seated on a Lion and now in the British Dynasties or Northern Song example in the Cleveland
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Museum. The subject of Guanyin meditating by water Museum of Art (Fig. 3), whose style and general
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was painted by such famous Tang artists as Zhou Fang appearance anticipate those of the present sculpture.
(c. AD 730–800) and Jing Hao (c. AD 855–915), but
such paintings now survive only in written records, the The White-Robed Guanyin first gained a following
original works no longer extant. The earliest surviving among devotees of Chan Buddhism during the late

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