1. M5489
Description
Chinese Blanc de Chine Guanyin, seated with her hands covered by long flowing robes, with her right knee raised and one foot exposed, her hair neatly tied with a jewelled lingzhi tiara beneath an upright cowl, with serene features, elongated earlobes and an urna mark on her forehead, wearing a lotus flowerhead necklace, covered in a pale cream glaze pooling in the folds, all on an oval cushion with incised herringbone pattern.
The back impressed with a square four-character seal-mark of He Chaozong Yin.
The interior with ink-characters xian, “immortal”.
11 3⁄8 inches, 28.9 cm high.
Dehua, Fujian Province.
Late Ming dynasty, circa 1620-1640.
Provenance & Additional Information
- Sold by Maison C.T. Loo, Paris.
- From an important private French collection.
- Three other closely related models from the collection of the Imperial Court of the Qing Dynasty are illustrated by Wang Yamin and Huang Weiwen in Dehua Wares Collected by the Palace Museum I, nos. 26-28, pp. 92-101, no. 26 possesses a cowl, necklace and an identical base and was one of three Guanyin figures recorded as being worshipped at the Cining Palace; no. 27 has a necklace and the same base without the cowl and was worshipped in the Zhongcui Palace, built in the Yongle period, and used as a residence by the Ming and Qing emperors; no. 28 has a cowl and an identical base without the necklace and was recorded as being consecrated in the Chengde Summer Palace, with sutras placed within the figure during the Qianlong period, nos. 26 and 27 both have gourd marks.
- An almost identical Guanyin with all the same features and the seal mark of He Chaozong Yin, and of similar height was lent by the Nelson Gallery, the Atkins Museum, and is illustrated by Suzanne G. Valenstein in Ming Porcelains: A Retrospective, 1970-1971, no. 69, p. 97.
- A similar Guanyin bearing the same seal mark but without the cushion base from the collection of Mr. C. A. Weissing, was included by Marchant in their exhibition of Blanc de Chine, 2006, no. 3, pp. 12/13, and was featured on the front cover of Chinese Art Auction Records, 2008; another without a cowl and with a He Chaozong gourd mark, exhibited at the China Institute Gallery, New York, 2002 is illustrated by John Ayers in Blanc de Chine: Divine Images, no. 34, p. 83, and inside front cover.
- Another with a gourd mark from the collection of Captain J. Meuldijk, the Netherlands was included by Marchant in their exhibition of Blanc de Chine, 2014, no. 1, pp. 8/9; a further example with a gourd mark and with the Guanyin holding a scroll on a similar base was included by Marchant in their exhibition of Blanc de Chine, 1985, no. 2, p. 6.
- Guanyin, the goddess of Mercy, is usually depicted as a female deity in white robes, shoeless, looking slightly down with an expression of purity and wisdom, guan means to see; yin means sound, and together the words mean “she who sees and hears”.