The goddess of mercy shown seated, with a small vase and ruyi scepter, her eyes meditative and downcast, her high-top knot under a scarf and a long necklace around her neck.
The goddess of mercy shown seated, with a small vase and ruyi scepter, her eyes meditative and downcast, her high-top knot under a scarf and a long necklace around her neck.
Similar figures of Guanyin are in the collections of the British Museum (1947,0712.313), the Metropolitan Museum of NYC (64.279.9a, b), the Victoria and Albert Museum (C.1275&A-1910), or the Shanghai Museum (Kangxi Porcelain wares from the Shanghai Museum Collection, 1998, p. 232-233).
A similar Guanyin is reproduced by William R. Sargent in Chinese Porcelain in the Conde Collection, Madrid, 2014, p. 164, no. 47
In the context of East Asian Buddhism, Guanyin is a Bodhisattva associated with compassion. The Chinese characters that make up “Guanyin” specifically means “observer of sounds” (guan = observe; yin = sounds), conveying the belief that Guanyin is a listener of suffering sounds, and thus a tenderer of the world’s troubles. For this reason, most depictions of Guanyin in Chinese art feature the Bodhisattva looking downward, as if to watch over the mortal realms.
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