Reflection and Enlightenment: Chinese Buddhist Gilt-Bronzes from the Jane and Leopold Swergold Collection

Reflection and Enlightenment: Chinese Buddhist Gilt-Bronzes from the Jane and Leopold Swergold Collection

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 3516. A gilt-bronze figure of Avalokiteshvara Tang dynasty | 唐 鎏金銅觀世音菩薩立像.

A gilt-bronze figure of Avalokiteshvara Tang dynasty | 唐 鎏金銅觀世音菩薩立像

Auction Closed

October 12, 12:42 PM GMT

Estimate

600,000 - 800,000 HKD

Lot Details

Description

A gilt-bronze figure of Avalokiteshvara

Tang dynasty

唐 鎏金銅觀世音菩薩立像


portrayed standing elegantly in tribhanga, the deity draped in figure-hugging princely Indian attire, with rippling scarves that extend beyond the feet, a long dhoti, and immaculate jewellery, depicted with the right hand holding an object that has been rendered unrecognisable and left hand grasping a kundika

h. 15.3 cm

Kyushiu Collection, Japan.

Ikeda, 1975.

M. Kumazawa, Tokyo, 1980.


Kyushiu 收藏，日本

Ikeda，1975年

M. Kumazawa，東京，1980年

Leopold Swergold, Thoughts on Chinese Buddhist Gilt Bronzes, Aventura, 2014, cat. no. 27.


Leopold Swergold，《Thoughts on Chinese Buddhist Gilt Bronzes》，2014年，圖版27

Reflection and Enlightenment: Chinese Buddhist Gilt Bronzes from the Jane and Leopold Swergold Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2017-2018. 


《Reflection and Enlightenment: Chinese Buddhist Gilt Bronzes from the Jane and Leopold Swergold Collection》，休士頓美術館，休士頓，2017-2018年

This crisply cast figure depicts the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara standing in tribhanga in sumptuous dress, with fluttering scarves, a long dhoti and elaborate jewelry. It lacks the traditional small figure of Amitabha in the crown, but the presence of the kundika in the left hand identifies the subject as Avalokiteshvara. A similar figure in the Takenouchi Collection, Tokyo, is illustrated in Osvald Siren, Chinese Sculpture, vols I - II, Bangkok, 1998, pl. 418B, where it is attributed to the high Tang period. Another elegantly curved standing figure of Avalokiteshvara with very similar posture, dhoti, scarves, and facial expression in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is illustrated in Denise Patry Leidy and Donna Strahan, Wisdom Embodied: Chinese Buddhist and Daoist Sculpture collection, New Haven, 2010, cat. no. 19, accession number 42.25.27a, gift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller.