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Figure of the bodhisattva Guanyin
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Description
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.
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Details
- Associated place
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Asia › China › Shaanxi province (probable place of creation)
- Material and technique
- wood, with carved decoration, gesso ground, gilding, and traces of pigment
- Dimensions
- 93 x 30 x 21 cm estimated, max. (height x width x depth)
- Material index
- Technique index
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covered › metallized › gilded
- Object type index
- No. of items
- 1
- 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.
- Accession no.
- EA1999.96
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Further reading
Barnes, Ruth, Emma Dick, and Jon Thompson, Textiles Through the Ages (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2002), cat. p. 8, illus. p. 8
Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 24 May 2006-23 December 2008, Treasures: Antiquities, Eastern Art, Coins, and Casts: Exhibition Guide, Rune Frederiksen, ed. (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2006), no. 152 on p. 55, illus. p. 55
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)
Location
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Second floor | Room 38 | China from 800
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Second floor | Room 38 | China from 800
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