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ETERNAL STYLE: A PRIVATE AMERICAN COLLECTION PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF ABOLALA SOUDAVAR
A POLYCHROME-PAINTED AND GILT- A LARGE POLYCHROME-PAINTED AND
LACQUERED STUCCO HEAD OF A GILT-LACQUERED WOOD FIGURE OF
BODHISATTVA AVALOKITESHVARA
YUAN / MING DYNASTY Height 40¼ in., 102 cm
affixed to stand
Height 14 in., 35.5 cm PROVENANCE
Sotheby’s New York, 22nd September 2004, lot 36 (sold as
PROVENANCE Yuan dynasty).
Barling of Mount Street, London, prior to 1993. Seated on a rockwork base in lalitasana with the right leg
drawn up and the left leg folded beneath, the present lot
$ 30,000-50,000 depicts the Avalokiteshvara of the Southern Seas, or the
Nanhai Guanyin, in an elegantly relaxed pose. The figure is
depicted with a serene meditative expression with the large
元 / 明 彩繪漆金泥塑菩薩首像 rounded face set with elongated eyes and a small bud mouth,
all below a concave urna. Dressed in loose skirts spreading
來源 over the base, the torso is bare but for a shawl across the
Barling of Mount Street，倫敦，1993年之前 shoulders, adorned with an elaborate jeweled pectoral set
with a pendent lotus flower and a long chain set with a
dharmacakra. This languid sculptural form of the princely
bodhisattva finds its predecessors in polychrome-painted
wood or gilt bronze depictions of Guanyin that were widely
popular during the tenth to fourteenth century.
The iconography of Nanhai Guanyin was known in China
since the early fifth century with the translation of the
Avatamsaka Sutra (Huayan jing) from Sanskrit: the text
describes the bodhisattva residing at his mythical dwelling
on Mount Potalaka in the southern Indian seas. Overtime,
the deity became known as one of mercy and compassion,
answering prayers and protecting the faithful from
catastrophe.
For stylistically similar examples from the Yuan dynasty, see
a gilt and painted figure, with the proper left hand resting
against a stand, sold at Christie’s New York, 2nd June 1989,
lot 95; another, with one leg pendent, in the British Museum,
London, is illustrated in Hai-wai Yi-chen: Chinese Art in
Overseas Collections, Buddhist Sculpture I, Taipei, 1986,
pl. 162. Additionally, a figure attributed to the Song / Yuan
dynasty, previously in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, was
sold at Christie’s New York, 16th September 1998, lot 290.
⊖ $ 20,000-30,000

木漆金加彩觀音坐像

來源
紐約蘇富比2004年9月22日，編號36（斷代元）

98 SOTHEBY’S COMPLETE CATALOGUING AVAILABLE AT SOTHEBYS.COM/N11074 99