A RARE GILT-BRONZE VOTIVE FIGURE OF AVALOKITESVARA SUI – EARLY TANG DYNASTY

sensitively modelled standing in tribhanga with the right hip gently thrust to the side on an octagonal lotus base, adorned in a dhoti belted at the waist and cascading in folds revealing the toes, the upper torso left bare and adorned with long ropes of beaded jewellery draping over the body, the right elbow rendered bent with the right hand holding a lotus bud, the left hand holding one side of the scarf flanking the figure, the back of the head with a small loop attached with an openwork flame-shaped mandorla enclosing a delicate beaded centre, framing the serene expression and ornate headdress, wood stand

Collection of Sato Gengen (1888-1963).

Saburo Matsubara, Zoutei Chugoku Bukkyo Choukoku Shi Kenkyu [Chinese Buddhist Sculpture - A study based on bronze and stone statues other than works from cave temples], Tokyo, 1966, pls. 221a-b.

The figure is in good overall condition, and the gilding is very well preserved, with just small areas of rubbing. There are minor dents and bruises to the fragile extremities, and other minor surface wear. There is some malachite-green oxidisation to the surface, especially the reverse of the mandorla. The mandorla is separately cast and possibly associated.
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The present bronze exemplifies a crucial sculptural transition from the stylised volumes of the Sui dynasty to the fully rounded fleshy forms of the Tang dynasty. A similar figure with openwork flame halo, of more rigid pose and probably slightly earlier date, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is illustrated in Osvald Sirén, Chinese Sculpture from the Fifth to the Fourteenth Century, London, 1925, pl. 278. Compare also the central Avalokitesvara figure in a famous Sui dynasty votive triad group, formerly in the Nitta Collection, now in the collection of the National Palace Museum, included in the Museum's exhibition The Crucible of Compassion and Wisdom, Taipei, 1987, pl.74, and discussed in detail by Saburo Matsubara, Chinese Buddhist Sculpture, Tokyo, 1966, pl. 203a-b; another, with similarly delicate features and fingers, from the Esei Bunko collection of the Hosokawa family, Japan, illustrated ibid., pl. 224a and 224c, and again in Hugo Munsterberg, Chinese Buddhist Bronzes, Tokyo, 1967, pl. 50; and a larger example, depicted with eleven faces in a standing posture and attributed to the Tang dynasty, in the Shanghai Museum, illustrated in Zhongguo meishu quanji. Diaosu bian [The complete collection of Chinese art: Sculptures], vol. 4, 1989, Beijing, pl. 55.

These earlier influences appear to reach full efflorescence in the present figure; compare a bodhisattva with very similar features, closely related to the present example with similar conical base, illustrated by Osvald Sirén, op. cit., pl. 418B, cited as from the Takenouchi Collection, Japan, but illustrated again, in the Sano Museum, Shizuoka Prefecture, by Saburo Matsubara, op. cit., pls. 263 and 264.

Compare a figure with slightly more rounded features but equally sinuous posture, from the collection of Grenville Winthrop, now in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, illustrated by Ulrich von Schroeder, Indo-Tibetan Bronzes, Hong Kong, 1981, p. 500, fig. 142A. The fine execution of the facial features and the hands also appears related to that on a Tang seated Buddha with similarly elegant fingers in dharmachakra mudra, in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, illustrated op.cit., p. 292, figs. 267A-B.

There only appears to have been one closely related figure of Avalokitesvara sold at auction, a larger (38.7 cm) example of similar form and iconography, sold in our New York rooms, 22nd September 2004, lot 15.