Page 162 - 2020 Sept Important Chinese Art Sotheby's NYC Asia Week

9/2/2020 Important Chinese Art | Sotheby's

Impo rtant Chinese Art
New York |23 Sep 2020 | 09:00 AM EDT

Lot 606

A RARE STONE HEAD OF AVALOKITESHVARA , LIAO - JIN DYNASTY
Estimate: 40,000 - 60,000 USD

A RARE STONE HEAD OF AVALOKITESHVARA
LIAO - JIN DYNASTY
遼至金 石雕觀音首像

sensitively carved with naturally rendered features, the rounded oval face portrayed with a serene expression, the straight broad
nose rising to arched brows above downcast eyes and well-defined full lips, with the rounded cheeks flanked by pendulous
earlobes, the neatly combed hair drawn up into an elegant chignon secured by an elaborate floral diadem centered with a seated
Amitabha, traces of pigments and later-added gilt, mounted on stand (2)

Height 12¼ in., 31 cm

Provenance
American Private Collection, acquired in New York in the 1920s, and thence by descent.

來源
美國私人收藏，1920年代購於紐約，此後家族傳承

Catalogue Note
Stone sculptures of Avalokiteshvara from this period are rare. Compare a large painted wood example, depicted wearing a similarly
styled diadem centered with a seated Amitabha on lotus against a large circular mandorla, dated to the 8th year of Dading,
corresponding to 1168, illustrated in Osvald Sirén, Chinese Sculpture from the Fifth to Fourteenth Century, New York, 1925, pl. 587.
See also a pair of painted wood figures of standing Avalokiteshvara in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, dated to the 8th year of

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