Page 130 - Christie's Irving Collection Lacquer Bronse jade and Ink March 2019

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L A C Q U E R • J A D E • B R O N Z E • I N K T H E R V I N G C O L L E C T I O N 髹金飾玉 - 歐雲伉儷珍藏

Fig. 1 A gilt-bronze multi-armed Guanyin, Dali Kingdom (AD 937–1253). Fig. 2 A gilt-bronze multi-armed Guanyin, Dali Kingdom, 11th-12th
Sold at Christie’s New York, 24 March 2004, lot 77. Century. Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund,
圖一 大理國（公元937-1253） 鎏金銅千手觀音像 紐約佳士得2004年3 1956, accession no. 56.223. ©The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
月24日拍品77號 圖二 大理國 十一至十二世紀 鎏金銅千手觀音像 大都會博物館藏

almond-shaped eyes that look directly outward also the hips, and the long, beaded necklace that descends
point to its origins in the Dali kingdom, as does the vertically to cross at the abdomen and then loops over the knees
set third eye that has been substituted for the traditional as the present sculpture. (See Denise Patry Leidy, Donna
urna. In addition, the tall, cylindrical crown embellished Strahan, et al., Wisdom Embodied: Chinese Buddhist and
with stylized, cursorily rendered clouds, the long, beaded Daoist Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
necklace that descends to cross at the abdomen and then York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2010, p. 140, fg.
loops over the knees, and the low-waisted dhoti, which 100). A sculpture closely related in style, iconography, and
is secured at the hips, all signal this impressive sculpture’s general appearance in the collection of The Metropolitan
origin in the Dali Kingdom, likely in the eleventh or Museum of Art, New York (56.223) (Fig. 2) has been dated
twelfth century. to the eleventh to twelfth century. (See Leidy and Strahan,
Wisdom Embodied, pp. 138-40, no. 33)
A twelfth-century bronze sculpture representing a
two-armed Guanyin in the Yunnan Provincial Museum, Robert D. Mowry
Kunming, shares the same almond-shaped eyes that Alan J. Dworsky Curator of Chinese Art Emeritus,
Harvard Art Museums, and
look directly outward, the low-waisted dhoti secured at
Senior Consultant, Christie’s

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