2-723-916 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Bodhisattva Guanyin, late 500s-early 600s. The artistic excellence of this bodhisattva is further reinforced by comparable outstanding Chinese Buddhist sculptures excavated at Qingzhou in Shandong Province in 1996-one of the most sensational and significant archaeological finds of the 20th century. Like related types among the Qingzhou finds, this statute has a gently smiling face and meticulous detailing of splendid jewelry. A noticeable difference, however, is the unique yingluo (mukt hara) worn by the bodhisattva for personal adornment. The somewhat bizarre but imaginative combination of a string of jewels with grotesque animal masks, flying aspara, jade pendants, dragons, and metal ornaments was probably a regional decorative style of Shanxi Province.