MING DYNASTY (1368-1644)

This finely carved figure retains all of the sense of robust power and majesty seen in figures of Tang, Song and Jin dynasty date. The folds of the drapery in the shawl, scarves and dhoti worn by this figure are reminiscent of that seen on painted wood figures of Song date, but the small, pursed mouth, the slender nose and oblique eyes are more similar to those found in Ming painted sculpture. The figure’s pierced ears suggest that he may have had separately-made jewelry and the ridge of the hair suggests that he would have worn a separately-made crown, likely made of metal.

A figure of a seated Guanyin, dated Ming dynasty and displaying similar stylistic elements, is in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and is illustrated by Denise Patry Leidy and Donna Strahan in Wisdom Embodied: Chinese and Daoist Sculpture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2010, pp. 156-7, no. 40. Like the present figure, the Met figure has similarly rendered hair encircled with a ridge where a crown would have been placed, as well as gesso decoration along the edges of the robes.