Page 110 - important chinese art mar 22 2018

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A GILT-BRONZE FIGURE OF ඡ ზ⺗ږᝈࠪͭ྅
AVALOKITESHVARA ̏ᕧࢭთ˖j
SUI DYNASTY ˄׹ʩϋɚ˜ɤɞ˚ۼط׼ɪމɳख़˨͎
หிᝈ˰ࠪ྅ɓਜԶቮ
standing on a lotus base, the Goddess of Mercy
positioned in contrapposto with the left leg Ը๕
stepping forward slightly and the right hip tilted Eskenazi Ltd dࡐ౱dߒ1982ϋ
upward, the right arm raised at the elbow and
holding a pearl in the % ngers, the left arm hanging
by the side with the hand grasping a long sash,
the body draped in robes and sashes clinging to
the sinuous body, necklaces adorning the chest
and a tall diadem crowning the head, the ! ame-
shaped mandorla attached by a pin framing
the torso, all raised on an earlier Northern
Wei dynasty four-legged stand incised with a
dedicatory inscription dated to the % rst year of
Taicheng, corresponding to 532 A.D., Japanese
wood box (3)
Height 9 in., 22.9 cm

PROVENANCE
Eskenazi, Ltd., London, circa 1982.
The S-curved posture, detached mandorla,
elaborate ornamentation, and ribbony garments
that cling to the body express the new visual
vocabulary for Buddhist statuary that developed
in the Sui dynasty (581-618). Both Emperor Wen
(r. 581-604) and Emperor Yang (r. 604-618) used
Buddhism as a means of unifying the empire
and they avidly patronized the construction
of Buddhist temples, pagodas, grottoes, and
sculptures. Emperor Wen was particularly devout
due to his upbringing in a monastery. He is
alleged to have commissioned 4,000 temples
and over 100,000 new images in gilt-bronze,
ivory, wood, and stone, and restored over 1.5
million damaged % gures. Two gilt-bronze % gures
of Avalokiteshvara dated by inscription to his
reign bear a strong resemblance to the present
example. The most strikingly similar one is
inscribed to the base with a date corresponding
to 586 A.D. and is published in Jintong fo xiang
[Gilt-Bronze Buddhist Figures], Beijing, 1998,
pl. 7. The second, in the collection of the British
Museum, depicts the bodhisattva holding a jewel
in one hand and a bottle in the other and is dated
by inscription to 595 A.D. and published in Hugo
Munsterberg, Chinese Buddhist Bronzes, Rutland,
VT and Tokyo, 1967, pl. 59.
The stand of the present % gure is inscribed with
a dedication and date, corresponding to the
18th day of the 2nd month of the % rst year of
Taichang, corresponding to 532 A.D. Taichang
(Great Prosperity) is the % rst reign name of the
Northern Wei Emperor Xiaowu’s rule (r. 532-535).
The Taichang period started on 12th April 532 and
lasted only a few months before the reign was
renamed as Yongxing (Eternal Flourishing), a title
which lasted through the end of Xiaowu’s reign.
$ 50,000-70,000

108 SOTHEBY’S