Page 171 - 2019 October Important Chinese Art Sotheby's Hong Kong

fig. 1
Eleven-headed wood figure of Avalokiteshvara(detail), late Northern Song – Jin
dynasty
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
Courtesy of Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland
圖一
北宋末年至金 木雕十一面觀音立像(局部)
J.H. Wade 基金購藏
圖片鳴謝：克里夫蘭藝術博物館

Of the famous life size wood sculptures of bodhisattvas 106, and on the cover. See also similar stylistic elements
preserved in museum collections, one of the finest is the on the famous pair of large wood figures of bodhisattvas
large Song – Jin dynasty wood figure of Avalokiteshvara, in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. Reportedly found
illustrated in Masterworks of Asian Art. The Cleveland in Linfen, Shanxi province, before they entered the George
Museum of Art, Cleveland, 1998, p. 56 (fig. 1). It shares Crofts collection, one of them is notable for the dedicatory
several distinct stylistic features with the current lot, inscription on the inside dating it to 1195; see Denise Patry
especially the treatment of the face, softly carved with fleshy Leidy and Donna Strahan, Wisdom Embodied. Chinese
modelling, skilful rendering of naturalistic details including Buddhist and Daoist Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of
the creases at the mouth, the slightly plump cheeks, and Art, New York, 2010, p. 19, fig. 20.
the prominent brow. Several features, including the precise For other examples of Jin wood carved figures sold at auction,
manner in which the upper torsos are rendered on both see a Liao – Jin polychrome wood figure of Water Moon
figures, through skilful curved lines highlighting the exposed Guanyin from the collections of Martin Erdmann and Brodie
muscle, are so similar that it could be conjectured that Lodge, sold in our London rooms, 7th June 1988, lot 48, to
both figures were created by the same carver or workshop. Eskenazi, and recently sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 30th
Compare also the treatment of the face, robes and exposed May 2018, lot 2858, and a large Song – Jin dynasty figure of a
body on a monumental polychrome wood figure in the Bodhisattva from the collection of Robert Hatfield Ellsworth,
Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas, illustrated in Robert sold at Christie’s New York, 17th March 2015, lot 58.
E. Fisher, Buddhist Art and Architecture, London, 1993, pl.

169