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Unusual Blanc de Chine Guanyin
18th Century
High 28 cm.
With impressed seal on underside
Includes wooden stand.
Unusual Blanc de Chine Guanyin, Chinese Seated Guanyin, in pale celadon glaze, finely made goddess shown seated in lilasana, enthroned on a lotus base on top of rock base, with left arm down across the body and a vase of compassion in the left hand, and Prayer Beads or Rosary in the right hand, wearing a necklace and full robes with scroll borders that falls in graceful folds around the body and is pulled up as a cowl to cover the top of the head, the face with gentle contemplative expression, with impressed seal on underside.
* This figure relate well to to blanc-de-chine examples of contemporaneous date which can be seen in a comparison of a blanc-de-chine seated Guanyin illustrated by R. H. Blumenfield, Blanc de Chine: The Great Porcelain of Dehua, Berkeley/Toronto, 2002, p. 102 A, B and C. This particular pose, with Guanyin shown seated in “royal ease”on a rockwork base, wth the arm drawn across the body within the artful draped sleeve is also seen in blac-de-chine figures, such as the one illustrated by P. J. Donnelly, Blanc de Chine, New York, 1969, pl. 82 A.
Prayer Beads or Rosary – 仏手を蒙る. Provides protection and used for prayer and invocation. A string of beads or a rosary, used for Buddhist prayer and invocation. Associated particularly with a chant repeating the name of Amida Buddha. The number and shape of the beads varies, but the most common type has 108 beads.
