Page 145 - Sothebys Important Chinese Art 09/13/17

118

PROPERTY FROM A NEW YORK PRIVATE
COLLECTION

A LARGE POLYCHROME WOOD
FIGURE OF GUANYIN
EARLY MING DYNASTY

carved standing wearing monastic robes over a
dhoti and inner garment, with oral borders and
falling in voluminous folds from the arms and
about the body, opening at the chest to reveal a
ruyi-form torque, a ve-pointed diadem centered
with a standing Buddha crowning the bodhisattva
Height 64 in., 162.6 cm

PROVENANCE

Collection of Katherine Thayer Hobson (1889-
1982), acquired in Berlin in 1917, and thence by
descent.

Images depicting Guanyin with a ve-pointed
crown are not the most common portrayal of
this bodhisattva. A gure in a ve-pointed crown
depicting each of the ve Dhyani Buddhas,
paired with monastic robes, is the typical
representation of another of the most popular
bodhisattvas in Chinese culture, Ksitigarbha, or
Dizangwang. Compare several other polychrome
wood gures of Guanyin in similar adornment,
one attributed to the Yuan dynasty and sold in
these rooms the 23rd September 1997, lot 163;
and another attributed to the Yuan / early Ming
dynasty illustrated in Chinese Buddhist Sculpture,
Eskenazi, London, 1997, cat. no. 16.

The later-added pigments and elaborate
decoration to the robes is related to those
later added to a group of carved wood Yuan
dynasty arhat gures from northern Shanxi
province illustrated in Ancient Chinese Sculptural
Treasures: Carvings in Stone, Kaohsiung Museum
of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung, 1998, cat. nos 16-26.

$ 40,000-60,000

Katherine Thayer Hobson (1889-1982)
1917