A number of these slightly larger than life-size wood figures, seated in this form of lalitasana posture of relation, are known in museum collections around the world. A close example of this remarkably large size given to the British Museum by the National Art-Collections Fund is illustrated in Buddhism: Art and Faith, ed. by W. Zwalf, London, 1985, p. 206, no. 296. Another smaller example (109.2 cm. high) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art is illustrated in Hai-wai Yi-Chen, Chinese Art in Overseas Collections, Buddhist Sculpture II, National Taipei, 1990, p. 147, no. 142. Large wood Buddhist sculptures of this type were produced between the 10th to 14th centuries in northern China's two pre-eminent Buddhist centres of Taiyuan and Wutai Mountain, both in Shanxi province. In this instance, the fleshed out limbs and naturalistic facial features of the present sculpture are distinctive of the Song period, and differ to the delicate-limbed deities of the earlier Tang dynasty.

The modelling of the present figure seated at ease with the left leg pendent is often termed by the name of Watermoon Guanyin or Nanhai Guanyin (the Avalokitesvara of the Southern Seas). Both names refer to the Guanyin residing at Mount Potalak on the southern coast of India, and the imagery was introduced into China with the translation of the Avatamsaka (Huayan) sutra in the early 5th century.