Rare statuette de Guanyin en porcelaine Qingbai. Chine, dynastie Yuan (1279-1368). Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2011

Représentée assise, le genoux droit plié, vêtue d'un long manteau souple, le torse nu souligné de fins perlages, le visage serein, les cheveux coiffés en chignon, certaines mèches retombant sur ses épaules, mêlées à d'élégants rubans ; accidents. Hauteur: 20,5 cm. (8 in.). Estimate €4,000 - €6,000. Price Realized €39,400

元   青白瓷觀音坐像A RARE QINGBAI SEATED FIGURE OF GUANYINCHINA, YUAN DYNASTY (1279-1368)

Provenance: From a European private collection

Notes: Compare this very charming figure of Guanyin with other examples such as the one belonging to C.P.Lin, illustrated in the catalogue of an exhibition held by the Hong Kong Oriental Ceramic Society, Jingdezhen Wares - The Yuan Evolution, Hong Kong, 1984, no.25, colour plate p. 56 ; the famous Guanyin in the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, USA (which is dated to 1298 or 1299) illustrated in by Sherman E. Lee and Wai-kam Ho in Chinese Art Under the Mongols: The Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368), Cleveland 1968, no. 26 ; a further example from the collection of the Rietberg Museum, Zurich, illustrated in ibid., Cleveland, 1968, no. 25 ;  the Guanyin in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York illustrated by Suzanne Valenstein in Handbook of Chinese Ceramics - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1975, no. 69 ; an example in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, illustrated in Far Eastern Ceramics in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1980, colour plate 37 ; the large Yuan dynasty Bodhisattva excavated in 1955 from Dingfu Street in the western suburbs of Beijing, and now in the Capital Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Zhongguo wenwu jinghua - taoci juan, Taipei, 1995, p. 353, no. 618.

Christie's. Art d'Asie, 14 December 2011. Paris www.christies.com