Figure of the bodhisattva Guanyin
On display
This elaborately-robed bodhisattva is an image of Guanyin, or Avalokiteshvara, who became widely worshipped as a goddess of compassion. This figure is from northern Shaanxi province, possibly the Wutai mountains, an ancient holy site of Buddhist pilgrimage. The picture shows the Wutai mountains as painted in AD 961 in a Buddhist cave temple over 1,000 miles away on the Silk Road.
Details
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Title
Figure of the bodhisattva Guanyin
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Associated place
China (place of creation)Shaanxi province (probable) (probable place of creation) -
Date
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Material and technique
wood, with carved decoration, gesso ground, gilding, and traces of pigment
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Material index
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Technique index
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Object type
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Dimensions
93 x 30 x 21 cm estimated, max. (height x width x depth) -
No. of items
1
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Credit line
Purchased with the assistance of the Art Fund, S. Wheatland Fisher, the Friends of the Ashmolean Museum, an anonymous benefactor, and the Dr Mortimer and Theresa Sackler Foundation, 1999.
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Museum location
Second floor | Gallery 38 | China from AD 800 -
Museum department
Eastern Art
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Accession no.
EA1999.96
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Further reading
Vainker, Shelagh, Chinese Silk. A Cultural History (London: The British Museum Press, 2004), p. 123, figs 80-81 on pp 121-123
Christopher Brown, ‘The Burlington Magazine, Acquisitions (1998-2014) at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford’, 1139, (2014)
