Antique Nanhai Guanyin with Attendants and Donor, China (16210BEME) $5900 SPECIAL PRICE

Description

This Nanhai Guanyin sits in her cave home on the island of Putuo represented by pierced openwork, craggy surfaces and open area at the cave top. Guanyin’s image almost fills the cave’s opening seated in dhyana (meditation), thumbs forming a triangle symbolizing the triratna, the Three Gems of Buddhism (the Buddha, the Dharma (Buddha’s teachings) and the Sangha (community of monks) with eyes gazing down in peaceful concentration. Her tall blue crown with floral motifs is centered with Amitabha Buddha inside a blue frame symbolizing an aureole with rays of light, as he is the Buddha of Infinite Light. Guanyin’s throne (padmapitha) has flat radiating lotus leaves on a pedestal with a round base.  As a form of ancestor-worship the donor who commissioned the piece sits on top with an official’s attire and hands obscured by a cloth with an indentation that held a votive or hu-tablet, which if a larger size was another temple donation and way for pious Buddhists to earn merit.  Donors are rarely atop a Guanyin carving are rare; they are generally in front on the side or separate images placed on the family’s altar with other Buddhist, Taoist and Popular Religion figures. Two levels of attendant pairs flank her: the upper with her two acolytes Longnu, (the Dragon Princess) on her right holding a flaming gem, and Shan Tsai (Sudhana) on her left with hands, now missing, clasped in anjali mudra of reverence and two generic attendants on the bottom. Nanhai Guanyin is a syncretic deity, one of the Great Chinese Goddesses (Irvin) who embody feminine compassionate to grant health, long life. Finely executed with paint and cracks and wood losses at the base and Shan Tsai’s hands, it is in excellent condition having survived China’s modernization. Probably on a home altar or clan temple shrine, the rear cavity indicates it was consecrated. 

Click here for the Blog The Emergence of Nanhai Guanyin and the blog Consecrating Wooden Images to Imbue Them with A Life Force