The Personal Collection of the late Sir Joseph Hotung. Lot 10. A highly important gilt-bronze seated figure of Avalokiteshvara, Acuoye Guanyin, Dali Kingdom, 11th - 12th century; h. 37.8 cm, overall 41.9 cm. Lot sold: 48,775,000 HKD (Estimate: 15,000,000 - 20,000,000 HKD). © Sotheby's 2022

elegantly seated in lalitasana with one leg pendant, the right hand raised in vitarka mudra, the gesture of teaching, the left arm lowered in varada mudra, the gesture of bestowing wishes, displaying a regal composure and a serene facial expression, the hair neatly piled up into a tall and elaborate crown accommodating an image of Amitabha Buddha, with long loops of plaited hair reaching the shoulders, lavishly adorned with jewellery such as a headdress and armlets with three-pointed diadem design, large earrings and a bejewelled neckplate, rendered with a slender body with broad shoulders, the upper torse bare showing the graceful tautness of the figure, wearing a dhoti secured with a waist cloth which terminates in a bow affixed with a clasp in the form of a floral medallion, wood stand.

Provenance: Collection of Peng Kai-dong, alias Nitta Muneichi (1912-2006), the Nitta Group Collection.
Christie's Hong Kong, 26th April 1998, lot 606.
R.H. Ellsworth Ltd, New York, 30th July 1998.

Literature: Jintong fo zaoxiang tezhan tulu / The Crucible of Compassion and Wisdom: Special Exhibition Catalogue of the Buddhist Bronzes from the Nitta Group Collection at the National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1987, cat. no. 105.
John Ang, 'The Crucible of Compassion and Wisdom', Arts of Asia, July-August 1988, pp. 91-103, fig. 21.
Robert E. Fisher, 'The Nitta Collection of Chinese Bronzes', Orientations, July 1990, pp. 39-45, fig. 4 (illustration mirrored).
John Guy, 'The Avalokiteśvara of Yunnan and Some South East Asian Connections', South East Asia & China: Art, Interaction & Commerce. Colloquies on Art & Archaeology in Asia, no. 17, London, 1994, pp. 64-83, fig. 12.
Amy G. Poster, Richard M. Barnhart, et.al., Crosscurrents: Masterpieces of East Asian Art from New York Private Collections, New York, 1999, cat. no. 11.

Exhibited: Jintong fo zaoxiang tezhan tulu / The Crucible of Compassion and Wisdom: Special Exhibition Catalogue of the Buddhist Bronzes from the Nitta Group Collection at the National Palace Museum, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1987.
Crosscurrents: Masterpieces of East Asian Art from New York Private Collections, Japan Society Gallery, in association with the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, 1999.

Acuoye Guanyin, Royal Protector of the Dali Kingdom
Regina Krahl

Gilt-bronze Buddhist figures such as the present Avalokiteśhvara sculpture hold a unique place in the development of Chinese Buddhist sculptures. They are remarkable due to their independent idiosyncratic style, their grace and serenity, and their sheer size. What is known as Acuoye bodhisattvas are mostly standing figures of remarkable stylistic consistency. To find a seated sculpture is extremely rare and the present Guanyin appeals particularly due to its gentle, feminine facial features.

Figures of this type can be attributed to the southwestern part of China, today’s Yunnan province, a region that was independent for over 500 years, under the Nanzhao (750-902) and later the Dali (937-1253) kingdoms. Buddhism had been established as state religion by the last Nanzhao ruler, and at a time when the religion was facing multiple challenges in China’s heartland under the Song dynasty (960-1279), it flourished in China’s southwest – as it did in the northeast, under the Liao (907-1125).

When the Duan family came to power in Yunnan in 937, they pointedly used the religion to support the legitimacy of their rulership. They named their kingdom Dali, ‘Great Ruling Principle’, a term with Buddhist connotations, which they claimed had been selected for the kingdom by the bodhisattva Avalokiteśhvara himself. Azhali (or Ajali) Buddhism, a special form of Vajrayana Buddhism that seems unique to Yunnan, took hold in the region, with an Avalokiteśhvara cult, where this bodhisattva held greater significance than even the Buddha. According to John Guy, the straight frontal representation of these figures confirms their placement in a central position in a temple, rather than on either side of the Buddha, as was common for bodhisattva figures in the Tang (618-907), which are clearly depicted as supporting sculptures flanking a main image, with the body swaying and slightly turned (Guy 1994, p. 76).

Yunnanese gilt-bronze bodhisattva figures are distinctive through their physical characteristics of a very slender built with prominent shoulders, hands held in vitarka mudra and varada mudra, bejewelled necklace, armlets and single bracelet, simple dhoti, and high coiffure with an Amitābha Buddha figure in front, which identifies them as representations of Avalokiteśhvara. The style appears to have been clearly developed already at least by the 10th century. This bodhisattva type is depicted in the Nanzhao tuzhuan (Illustrated history of Nanzhao), a handscroll of 947 that copies an earlier version of 899, today preserved in the Fujii Yūrinkan, Kyoto. On this scroll, it is identified as Acuoye Guanyin, a Guanyin manifestation unique to Yunnan. Acuoye may be a transliteration of the Sanskrit term ajaya, meaning ‘all victorious’, or else the Sanscrit acarya, to refer to a spiritual teacher of Azhali teaching.

The scroll also depicts the legendary casting of such a sculpture out of a bronze drum, after a foreign monk who had performed various miracles, had disappeared into the air transformed into an Acuoye Guanyin. It depicts a large figure of a monk with an Avalokiteśhvara image emerging from his head, and shows two men seated in front, one working on a metal drum, the other holding a Guanyin sculpture, surrounded by metal-working utensils and a fire (Guy 1994, pp. 67-8, figs 2 and 3).

The handscroll also shows a monumental standing Acuoye Guanyin being venerated by Yunnanese royals (Guy 1994, p. 70, fig. 5). Such a monumental bronze sculpture, believed to have been eight meters tall, is reputed to have been held in the Chongsheng temple, the royal temple of the Dali kingdom, of which three pagodas are still standing near the old town of Dali, Yunnan. The figure is lost but may be reproduced in a hazy black-and-white photograph (Lutz 1991, p. 116, fig. 70). Although not very close to the Acuoye figures – and probably in a much-restored state – it already shows the same slender built and straight frontality of the later Yunnan figures, for which it is believed to have been a model.

he casting story is similarly depicted in another highly important handscroll, Fanxiang juan (Scroll of Buddhist Images) by the painter Zhang Shengwen (active 1163-89), now in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, in which one of the Dali kings, Duan Zhixing (r. 1172-1200) had himself and his courtiers portrayed in the 1170s (Guy 1994, p. 69, fig. 4). First published by Helen B. Chapin, who discovered and identified these figures already in the 1930s as ‘A Long Roll of Buddhist Images’, this scroll, one of the most important extant Dali works of art, depicts twenty different representations of Guanyin, among them a seated figure not unlike our sculpture (fig. 1), similarly dressed and wearing similar armlets, as well as a standing figure very similar to the usual standing gilt-bronze Acuoye figures.

fig.1.  Zhang Shengwen (fl. latter half of 12th century), Scroll of Buddhist Images, Dali Kingdom, handscroll, ink and colour on paper, detail; Taipei Palace Museum