Page 277 - Christie's Fine Chinese Paintings March 19 2019 Auction

THE PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE ASIAN COLLECTOR
1781
A FINELY-CAST GILT-BRONZE FIGURE OF SEVEN-HEADED
AVALOKITESHVARA
17TH-18TH CENTURY
The fgure is shown seated in dhyanasana, wearing a dhoti secured by beaded
jewelry around the waist and draped across the legs, the borders incised with a
lotus pattern repeated on the shawl draped over the shoulders, and a celestial
scarf is wrapped around the arms and falls to the lotus base. The primary
hands are held before the chest in vajra-anjalikarmamudra, and a subsidiary
pair are held in the lap in dhyanamudra, supporting an alms bowl, with the
remaining twenty pairs of arms radiating out from the shoulders and each
hand either holding an attribute or positioned in a mudra. The twenty-frst
pair of hands is raised to hold the fgure of Amitabha on a lotus platform above
three tiers of heads, of which the two lower tiers have three heads each, and
the top tier has a single head.
12æ in. (32 cm.) high
$50,000-80,000

PROVENANCE
Christie’s Hong Kong, 29 October 1995, lot 648.
Christie’s London, 13 November 2001, lot 113.
A related seven-headed twenty-four-armed gilt-bronze fgure of
Avalokiteshvara, with only twenty-four arms, but also holding
an Amitabha Buddha above the topmost head, dated to
16th-17th century, is in the Chang Foundation, and is
illustrated by James Spencer, Buddhist Images in Gilt
Metal, Taipei, 1993, pp. 86-87, no. 36. A similar fgure
with ten heads and forty-six arms dated to Qing
dynasty is in the Staatliche Museen Preussischer
Kulturbesitz, Museum für Völkerkunde, West
Germany, illustrated in Hai-wai Yi-chen (Chinese
Art in Overseas Collections), Buddhist Sculpture
II, p. 200, pl. 190. Another seven-headed fgure,
shown standing and dated to the cyclical xinwei
year, corresponding to 1691, was sold at Christie’s
Hong Kong, 29 November 2017, lot 2922.
清十七/十八世紀 鎏金銅千手觀音坐像

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