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AN EXTREMELY RARE GILT-BRONZE FIGURE 唐 銅鎏金十一面觀世音菩薩立像
OF ELEVEN-HEADED AVALOKITESHVARA,
TANG DYNASTY 來源
stand (2) 山中商會，紐約
Height 8½in., 21.6 cm 紐約帕克．博內藝廊，1944年5月27日，編號724
Rafi Y. Mottahedeh（1901-1978年）收藏
PROVENANCE 紐約蘇富比帕克．博內藝廊，1978年11月4日，
Yamanaka & Co., New York. 編號211
Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., New York, 27th May 1944, lot 724. 康乃狄克州私人收藏
Collection of Rafi Y. Mottahedeh (1901-1978). 紐約蘇富比2011年3月23日，編號691
Sotheby Parke-Bernet, New York, 4th November 1978, lot 211.
Connecticut Private Collection. 展覽
Sotheby’s New York, 23rd March 2011, lot 691. 《Reflection and Enlightenment: Chinese Buddhist Gilt
Bronzes from the Jane and Leopold Swergold Collection》，
EXHIBITED
休士頓美術館，休士頓，2017-2018年
Reflection and Enlightenment: Chinese Buddhist Gilt Bronzes
from the Jane and Leopold Swergold Collection, Museum of 文獻
Fine Arts, Houston, 2017-2018. Leopold Swergold，《Thoughts on Chinese Buddhist Gilt
Bronzes》，阿文圖拉，2014年，圖版26
LITERATURE

Leopold Swergold, Thoughts on Chinese Buddhist Gilt
Bronzes, Aventura, 2014, pl. 26.
This extremely rare figure depicts Avalokiteshvara standing
in tribhanga on a lotus platform. Of the six arms, one pair
holds the hands in anjali mudra in front of the chest, while
the others respectively hold a pierced star-shaped symbol
of the sun and the moon, a kundika, a rosary, and a lotus
stem with an attendant bud. This dynamic eleven-headed
form is derived from the Indian tradition, in which deities
were able to manifest themselves in as many as thirty-three
different forms to adapt to an ever changing world and help
those in need. The present eleven-headed manifestation
reflects the bodhisattva’s ability to detect need in every
direction, reminding devotees of the mercy and compassion
of Avalokiteshvara in their time of distress.
As is typical of the finest Tang dynasty examples, this figure
sways sensuously at the waist combining qualities of a prince
and an ascetic, grandly adorned with a crown and jewels yet
humbly dressed in a yogi’s antelope skin with prayer beads
in his hand. Representing the range of Avalokiteshvara’s
forms and aspects, each of the present eleven heads are
finely articulated and surmounted by a head of the Buddha
Amitabha, with whom he is closely associated in the
Buddhist tradition.
This grand and complex representation of Avalokiteshvara is
extremely rare. Compare a related example of this type from
Western Tibet, rendered with eleven heads and six arms
in copper alloy, now preserved in the Cleveland Museum
of Art (accession no. 1975.101), included in Marylin Rhie,
Robert Thurman, and John Bigelow Taylor, Wisdom and
Compassion: The Sacred Art of Tibet, New York, 1996, cat.
no. 127; as well as a related eleven-headed Avalokiteshvara
from the Tang dynasty from the collection of Sakamoto
Gorō, sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 5th October 2016,
lot 3218; and another in a private collection, illustrated in
Saburō Matsubara, Chūgoku Bukkyō chōkoku shiron [History
of Chinese Buddhist sculpture], Tokyo, 1995, vol. III, pl. 701c.
$ 120,000-180,000

154 SOTHEBY’S COMPLETE CATALOGUING AVAILABLE AT SOTHEBYS.COM/N11744 A COLLECTING JOURNEY: THE JANE AND LEOPOLD SWERGOLD COLLECTION 155