Page 69 - Christie's London May 14, 2019 Chinese Works of Art

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Manjushri’s standard attributes are a book and as typically is the case, the two modes are easily manifestation. In China, devotion to Guanyin was
a sword). Even so, roughly contemporaneous distinguished, as the White Robed Guanyin is popularized through the sutras, miracle tales, and
sculptures clearly identifed as Guanyin by the presented with a scarf over the head, as evinced legends by which the deity became associated
presence of an Amitabha Buddha atop the head by a Five Dynasties (907–960) to Northern Song with such natural elements as water and the moon,
also occasionally hold a book in the left hand. 7 (960–1127), gilt bronze sculpture in the Cleveland which, in turn, evoke themes of impermanence and
Whether wish-granting jewel or rosary bead, the Museum of Art (1984.7), whereas the Water change, reality, and refection.
object held in the fgure’s right hand also is one Moon Guanyin is presented with a bodhisattva’s
occasionally associated with Guanyin. Now in the standard robes and jewelry, with a topknot of hair, The pose of royal ease—a literal translation of
collection of New York’s Metropolitan Museum, a and often with a crown. the Sanskrit terms lalitasana, rajalalitasana, and
multi-armed Guanyin from the Dali Kingdom and maharajalalitasana, the several terms denoting the
dating to the eleventh or twelfth century holds An original base for a Water Moon Guanyin exact placement and arrangement of the legs—
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a rosary in the lowered left hand (56.223) . And sculpture, when present, typically represents the traces its origins to ancient India.
the wish-granting jewel, or cintamani, ordinarily large, fat-topped rock on which Guanyin sits in
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is associated only with Bodhisattvas Guanyin and his paradise. Although only the bases of wooden Chinese artists frst employed the royal ease pose
Dizang (Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha in Sanskrit), but sculptures usually survive, a ceramic sculpture in describing Buddhist fgures in the eighth and
not with Manjushri. Thus, the presence of both from the Longquan kilns in Zhejiang province, ninth centuries, as witnessed by a ninth-century
book and jewel or bead, in association with the dating to the Yuan to early Ming period and just portable painting from Dunhuang depicting the
pose of royal ease, argues that this fgure most slightly earlier than the present sculpture, depicts Bodhisattva Manjushri Seated on a Lion and now in
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likely represents Guanyin. the Water Moon Guanyin seated in the pose of the British Museum, London (1919,0101,0.141). And,
royal ease on a fat-topped rocky outcropping with though early Chinese sculptures of Buddhist deities
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The collection of the Musée Guimet, Paris, craggy sides that rises from rolling waves below; seated in royal ease are rare, a mid-eighth-century
includes a closely related, if slightly smaller (H. in the collection of the British Museum, London bronze sculpture in the Nelson-Atkins Museum,
23.5 cm) gilt bronze sculpture that also depicts a (1991,0304.3), the sculpture, which the museum’s Kansas City, portraying Guanyin Seated on Mount
bodhisattva seated in the pose of royal ease and curators date between 1300 and 1400, suggests Potalaka represents the Tang interpretation of the
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with the left hand resting on a book (accession the possible appearance of the base on which subject (F88-37/52). In fact, according to Wladimir
number MG 10639, fg. 1.). In the Guimet the present bodhisattva originally rested. Though Zwalf, formerly a keeper at the British Museum, the
collection since 1894, the sculpture traditionally much later, a Qing-dynasty (1644–1912) parcel- earliest archaeologically attested and thus reliably
has been labeled Manjushri and dated to the gilt bronze sculpture representing a White Robed datable Chinese sculpture of a bodhisattva seated
eighteenth century, but Ma Yuanhao, a specialist Guanyin seated in royal ease and holding a baby in royal ease—identical in pose to that of the present
in Chinese Buddhist sculpture, recently has retains its original base, the sculpture now in bodhisattva—is a fnely cast gilt bronze made
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reassigned it to Yuan-dynasty China and has the collection of the Liaoning Provincial Museum, during the tenth century in the Wu-Yue Kingdom in
identifed the fgure as Guanyin, his argument Shenyang. In the form of a rocky outcropping east China and excavated from the Wanfo pagoda,
based on the assumption that the somewhat rising from rolling seas and symbolizing Mount Jinhua, Zhejiang province. 19
unconventionally presented fgure atop the head Putuo, where Guanyin’s paradise is believed to
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represents Amitabha. Given that the Guimet be, that base, though much exaggerated and Foreshadowing later sculptural interpretations of
sculpture probably represents Guanyin and that populated with several accompanying fgures, the subject, a gilt bronze example portraying the
the present sculpture and the Guimet sculpture again perhaps suggests something of the general Water Moon Guanyin that dates to the tenth or
are closely related in style, general appearance, appearance of the bases of Song, Yuan, and Ming eleventh century and that now is in the collection
and mode of presentation, the present sculpture gilt bronze sculptures representing the Water of the Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA,
indeed likely represents Guanyin, an argument Moon Guanyin. typifes the Five Dynasties to early Northern Song
strengthened all the more by the pose and by the style (1943.53.60, fg. 2.). A very early sculptural
presence of the book and jewel. Not specifcally mentioned in the sutras, depiction of the Water Moon Guanyin, the Harvard
Guanyin’s Water Moon manifestation was work establishes the general appearance and
Suggesting both tranquility and a relaxed inspired by that episode in the story of the mode of presentation for most subsequent gilt
withdrawal from the world, the royal ease pose celebrated pilgrimage made by the devout bronze representations of this subject. In like
implies that the fgure so seated is at peace Indian boy Sudhana—who is called Shancai manner, the previously mentioned Five Dynasties
with both world and self and is engaged in Tongzi in Chinese—in which he visits Guanyin to Northern Song, gilt bronze sculpture in the
contemplation. When seated in the pose of royal in his mountain paradise. As chronicled in the Cleveland Museum is among the earliest known
ease, Guanyin usually is presented either as the Gandavyuha Sutra—which is known in Chinese as sculptural representations of the White Robed
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White Robed Guanyin or as the Water Moon Rufajie pin and which is the thirty-ninth and last Guanyin (1984.7). As the Harvard sculpture set the
Guanyin. The two are easily distinguished in chapter of the Avatamsaka Sutra—Sudhana, at standard for subsequent gilt bronze representations
paintings, as the White Robed Guanyin wears the behest of Bodhisattva Manjushri, undertook of the Water Moon Guanyin, so did the Cleveland
a simple, unadorned white robe with a scarf or a pilgrimage in quest of enlightenment, visiting sculpture establish the mode for subsequent gilt
shawl that covers the head—often concealing and studying with ffty-three teachers and bronze depictions of the White Robed Guanyin.
any crown or topknot of hair—and is typically bodhisattvas until his journey fnally led him to an Seated in the languid pose of royal ease, the
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placed in a subdued landscape with a waterfall; understanding of the teachings of the Buddha. Harvard sculpture has the oval face, bare chest
by contrast the Water Moon Guanyin is usually The twenty-eighth spiritual master that Sudhana with elaborate beaded necklace, capelet covering
draped in the conventional robes of a bodhisattva visited was Avalokiteshvara, or Guanyin, whom the upper back and enveloping the shoulders, and
and is set in a dense blue-and-green-style he encountered in the deity’s residence atop voluminous dhoti that covers the lower part of
landscape representing a paradise bedecked with Mount Potalaka, which Chinese identify as Mount the body from the waist to the ankles, all of which
coral and jewels, with a moon above (that often Putuo, an island believed to be in the East China would become the hallmarks of Yuan and Ming gilt
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serves as Guanyin’s mandorla), and with a pond Sea, to the southeast of present-day Shanghai. bronze representations of the Water Moon Guanyin
below in which the moon is refected—hence The description of Sudhana’s encounter with in Chinese style (as opposed to the Tibetan-
the name Water Moon Guanyin. Even when Guanyin as described in the Gandavyuha Sutra infuenced style that would become popular early in
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sculptures lack the original base and surround, provides the textual source for the Water Moon the Ming period).
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