Guanyin Bodhisattva. Chinese, Northern Sung dynasty, ca. 1025. This elegant wood sculpture sits frontally in a complex pose called the maharaja lalitasana. This pose, with left leg pendant and the right leg raised onto the top of the throne seat, the bent knee supporting the tensely stretched right arm, is known in Indian art from the fifth century, as evidenced by works in the Ajanta caves. This Guanyin is tentatively identified as Guanyin P'u-sa (Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva), the god-goddess of mercy and compassion, because of the representation of a small Buddha figure in the crown of the image.

Stylistically, the form possesses a lifelike reality and inner strength that convey an impression of alertness typical of early Northern Sung sculpture of the eleventh century. The ornamentation, not elaborately treated, is also consistent with eleventh-century sculptural style. This Guanyin dates stylistically and iconographically to about 1025, and, as such, is one of the earliest of its type to survive in a long line of similar images that are a dominant feature of Sung and Yuan Buddhist art.

Poster size 36 x 26 in (Image bleeds to edges)