Notes: The inscription may be translated ‘Disciple Run Ci respectfully made a sculpture of Guanyin as an offering to the altar for eternal life’. Related figures include a figure of Maitreya, also dated to the Sui dynasty but with less elaborate decoration, in the Langen collection, included in the exhibition Buddhisten, Jainas, Hindus. Auf der Suche nach dem Gottesbild, Raustenstrauch-Jost-Museum, Cologne, 2005, cat. no. 43.

Gilt-bronze figures from this period are rare; see a similarly elaborate standing figure, published in Saburo Matsubara,Chugoku bukkyo chokoku shiron, vol. 2, Tokyo, 1995, pl. 592, together with five more simplified figures, pls 588-590; and another, also with an inscription but with an unidentified date, in the Avery Brundage collection, illustrated in René-Yvon Lefebvre d’Argencé, Chinese, Korean and Japanese Sculpture, San Francisco, 1974, pl. 67.

The short Sui dynasty set the stage for and began to set in motion an artistic and cultural renaissance that reached its zenith in the succeeding Tang dynasty (618-907). Characteristics of Sui bronze figures include gently swaying elongated columnar bodies that are adorned in elaborate robes and jewelry. A sense of aristocratic countenance and serene meditative expression, with the slender yet fleshy face, long narrow eyes, sharply curved arched brows which form a harmonious line with the ridge of the nose, as well as the high chignon, encapsulate the classic Avalokitesvara image in the Sui dynasty.

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, New York, 13 sept. 2016, 10:30 AM