Guanyin of the Southern Sea

Museum title: Guanyin of the Southern Sea

Date:

Liao (907–1125) or Jin dynasty (1115–1234)

Material:

Wood with multiple layers of paint

Dimensions:

241.3 × 167.6 × 110.5 cm

Collection:

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, USA (object 34-10, acquired 1934)

Seated in the relaxed “royal ease” pose (maharajalila), the right arm resting on the raised knee, the left foot descending to a lotus — per the museum, a masterwork of the new humanism in 11th–12th-century Chinese Buddhist sculpture.

Provenance

Per the museum's provenance record: with an unknown dealer (possibly Celestin Liu) in Peiping (Beijing) by ca. 1932; with C. T. Loo, Paris, by 1933–1934; lent by Loo for the museum's opening in December 1933 and purchased in 1934. C. T. Loo was the most prominent — and, in China, most controversial — dealer through whom Chinese antiquities left for the West in the early 20th century.

The great mural behind it, The Assembly of Tejaprabha Buddha, comes from Guangsheng Temple, Hongdong, Shanxi (Yuan dynasty); the sculpture's original temple is not recorded.