Page 45 - Sotheby's Part II Collection of Sir Joeseph Hotung Collection CHINESE ART , Oct. 9, 2022

These figures were cast at a time when few contemporary gilt-
bronze sculptures were created in China, except for those made
in Liao territory. Stylistically, they are remarkably independent.
Although the style is sometimes called ‘Indianized’ and stylistic
influences from neighbouring southeast Asian countries have been
pointed out (Guy 1994), the physique and iconography seems to
have been developed very independently by local artisans and the
dependence on other southeast or south Asian Buddhist images is
not very close. Tests of the bronze itself have also shown that the
metal alloy is very distinctive in composition.

Only two other Acuoye Guanyin figures seated in this pose appear
to be recorded, one of similar size, but with hardly any gilding left,
sold at Christie’s New York, 18th September 2003, lot 170; the
other much smaller (18 cm), in a private collection, illustrated in Guy
1994, p. 75, fig. 10; a third figure in the Detroit Institute of Arts, also
smaller (33 cm), is seated with both legs pendent, in the ‘European’
pose, in Guy 1994, p. 74, fig. 9. A larger number of standing Acuoye
Guanyin figures are preserved, very similar in physique and attire.
The most precious among them is a gold figure with silver mandorla
discovered in the main pagoda of the Chongsheng Temple, now
kept in the Yunnan Province Museum, Kunming (Lutz 1991, no.
56). More closely related are several standing gilt-bronze figures,
similar to the figure in San Diego, for example, in the Yunnan
Province Museum, Kunming, and in the Musée Guimet, Paris,
included in the exhibition Der Goldschatz der drei Pagoden, Museum
Rietberg, Zurich, and published in Lutz 1991, nos. 2 and 3, where
two other figures in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. are
illustrated, pls 48 and 49; a figure in the Metropolitan Museum of
Art is illustrated in Denise Patry Leidy and Donna Strahan, Wisdom
Embodied. Chinese Buddhist and Daoist Sculpture in the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York, 2010, no. 32 and fig. 51; another in the
British Museum in W. Zwalf, ed., Buddhism. Art and Faith, The British
Museum, London, 1985, no. 297.
The figure comes from the collection of Nitta Muneichi (1912-2006),
who was born in Taipei as Peng Kai-dong, but left Taipei for Japan
as an adolescent and later took on a Japanese name. He became a
highly successful businessman with a company covering a wide range fig. 1
of different industries. After the Second World War, he opened an Zhang Shengwen (fl. latter half of 12th century), Scroll of Buddhist
antique shop on Ginza in Tokyo and in 1950 he began collecting Images, Dali Kingdom, handscroll, ink and colour on paper, detail;
Buddhist bronzes, which eventually became his main collecting National Palace Museum, Taipei
interest. An exhibition of his collection was held at the National ྡɓ
Palace Museum, Taipei in 1987 (The Crucible of Compassion ɽଣ਷cੵ௷๝€ݺᚔ׵ɤɚ˰ߏɨ̒໢೥૕྅‘՜cணЍ
and Wisdom). In 2003 he donated 358 Buddhist bronzes from ॷ͉c҅௅c̨݂̏ࢗ௹ي৫
East, Southeast and South Asia to the National Palace Museum,
which exhibited them in 2004, including a similar standing Acuoye
Avalokiteśhvara (The Casting of Religion. A Special Exhibition of Mr.
Peng Kai-dong’s Donation, cat. no. 161). A further donation of 48
pieces was made after his death, and he also donated works to the Helen B. Chapin, ‘Yünnanese Images of Avalokiteśvara’, Harvard Journal of Asiatic
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Studies, vol. 8 (1944), pp. 131-86
John Guy, ‘The Avalokiteśvara of Yunnan and Some South East Asian Connections’,
BIBLIOGRAPHY: in Rosemary Scott and John Guy, eds, South East Asia and China: Art, Interaction and
Helen B. Chapin, ‘A Long Roll of Buddhist Images’, Journal of the Commerce, Colloquies on Art and Archaeology in Asia, no. 17, Percival David
Indian Society of Oriental Art, June and December 1936 and June Foundation of Chinese Art, London 1994, pp. 64-83
1938; revised edition by Alexander C. Soper in Artibus Asiae vol. 32, Albert Lutz, Der Goldschatz der drei Pagoden. Buddhistische Kunst des Nanzhao- und
no. 1 (1970), pp. 4-41, 157-99, 259-306, and vol. 33 (1971), pp. 75-140 Dali-Königreichs in Yunnan, China, Museum Rietberg, Zurich, 1991

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