A LARGE AND RARE CHINESE PAINTED WOOD FIGURE OF GUANYIN

The left hand is held up in a gesture of teaching, or vitarkamudra. The gesture, as well as the high-waisted robe with fluttering sleeves, can be seen among the large bodhisattvas seated on the main altar of the Bhagavat Library of the Huayan Temple in Datong, Shanxi, constructed in 1038 in the Liao dynasty. The twenty-nine large sculptures on the altar are contemporary with the building. See Shi Yan et. al., Zhongguo meishu quanji:Diaosu, vol. 5, Beijing, 1988, pl. 138.
Compare, also, the very fine and important wooden sculpture of a seated bodhisattva sold in these rooms November 29, 1990, lot 63, and the stone figure in the Art Institute of Chicago, both of which also wear high-waisted robes. The Art Institute figure, believed to be of the Liao dynasty, had previously been considered to be Yuan and appeared in The Cleveland Museum of Art's 1968 exhibition, Chinese Art under the Mongols: TheYuan Dynasty (1279-1368), no. 1.