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I'm in the Netherlands and I have recently received a statue of a Water-Moon Guanyin, a Chinese Bodhisattva. I'm told it is ceramic or terracotta, but I'm not sure, there are no makers marks.. There is a hole in the bottom and traces of paint. It is about 60 cm tall. When I tap it with my nail the sound is bright. It is definitely not wood or stone, and it is a bit dusty. It's actually quite fragile there are some extremeties that have broken and have been glued..
I thought it could also be a vintage copy of an older statue? Do you maybe recognize the style or have any ideas about its age and origin?
thanks!
@mrij123 I love your Guanyin! Very nice... and huge 👍
It is in the Jin Dynasty Style, from around 1200...
It is probably not that old... some details in the design are oposing this dating.
Would you be so kind to provide some close up pictures of the polychrome areas?
Thank you
with Best Regards...
Carsten
@detuned thanks for your answer! yes here are some closer pics.. but I can add some more tomorrow with day light.
@mrij123 saidly these pictures are a bit blurry. Probably better with daylight 😉 The sculpture seems to have been buried or at least it supposed to appear as if it was...
Hard to tell but is there colouring? on the clothing? seems to be red? and the hair? a close up picture of these areas would help to determine this 🤓
with Best Regards...
Carsten
Yes.. It could be.. Is there a way to see the difference between a cast and a ceramic?
I'm also curious if it is a cast, would there be a (known) original or the inspiration.. I think she has a beautiful pose and expression.
@detuned here are some more pictures with details of the color traces. I hope these are better quality pictues...
I think this is a very interesting figure, also my vote is still out on where to date this...
I will be looking for some more, clear evidence of my idea... 🤔
This kind of base can also be found on earlier examples like this one:
I think the Sculpture is made of partial moldes which then were put together and reworked. This picture from @mrij123 shows that in a nice way:
also notice the carving signs from around the ear...
with Best Regards...
Carsten
I have made up my mind on dating this sculpture and it will probably spark a devided conversation... 🤭
I think this sculpture is from the Ming Dynasty!
So let me build a case here:
first off, as stated before, I do not think that this figure or parts of the figure were made with the modern slip technique. On one hand the paste seems not to be fine enough to support this. On the other hand look at the clay used for the figure:
It is a rich dark red clay. This type of clay can be found used on several Ming pieces. You might recognize this from various vases of the time (keyword: burnt red paste) as seen on this Vase, bottom right:
This red color is produced due to slight overfiring the paste with a lack of air within the kiln. Which leads me to the next point. When you look at the figure you will recognize these little popped bubbles on the surface. One might argue that this is a sign of slipcasting. But if you look at the destribution of these bubbles, they seem to appear numerous on the bottom half and fade away, the thinner the material gets, going upward the figure. This is gas within the clay, building up and wandering to the surface while firing. The overfiring caused more bubbles on the thicker parts because there is more material that can gas out.
The coloring of the figure also falls in line with the color scheme of the Ming Dynasty, with red and green clothing. The figure was cold painted and not glazed like in this Ming Dynasty example:
The cold painting is also the reason for the loss of almost all the pigments. Because when this sculpture was cleaned from adherent sand etc. the color was scraped of the figure. That the surface was scraped is very obvious like this picture displays. just look at all the little scratches:
I also think the style of the face is a very strong supporter for the dating of mid to late Ming Dynasty. But this style is vastly copied and probably not a strong argument for such a dating.
These are just my thoughts about this sculpture and I could be way off. But I would strongly suggest a Thermoluminescence-Test (TL-Test) to be sure of the age of this Guanyin.
with Best Regards...
Carsten
Thanks for discussing the bubbles, I had wondered what they may mean.
thank you all, and especially @Detuned, for your thoughts. It's a really intriguing idea that she could maybe be quite old.. hard to imagine that this fragile statue could have survived so long with all her fingers intact 😉
If I get a chance, I'll let someone take a look at her in person, here in Netherlands. If anything comes up I will let you know, but it might be a while. Till then I'll take extra good care of her.
Regardless of age, I absolutely love her elegance and peaceful 'young' energy in the house (I think she looks like a young woman).
You could ask Peter Combs over the link on top of the page, it's only $12. I always find his answers very helpful and sometimes surprising.
Birgit
Just saying, a TL-Test is probably the best and what the expert will tell you to get...
https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/57009187_chinese-large-terracotta-guayin-statue
😉 Have a great weekend
with Best Regards...
Carsten
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