26. RARE BLANC-DE-CHINE GUANYIN GROTTO GROUP
17th Century
12 3/4" (32.4 cm.) high; fitted wood stand

The Goddess is seated high on a rocky ledge within the grotto, flanked by two young acolytes with a cluster of flowering lotus rising above waves at the base. A vase is perched on a ledge at the left and a bird high on the right of the craggy outlines of the mountain. The composition is very heavily potted and covered in a very lustrous white glaze. There are some firing fissures at the base and the rear of the grotto. The sculptural quality of the rockwork is particularly dramatic and indicates the likelihood of a 17th century date when the Dehua kilns were famed for some of the best figurative sculptures in ceramic art.

In general, blanc-de-chine groups rarely portray more than two figures such as the Hehe Erxian. An exceptionally large grotto group of Guanyin surrounded by twenty-one acolytes on the island of Mount Pudu (Pudushan) is illustrated by P. J. Donnelly, Blanc de Chine, pl. 92, where the author dates the sculpture to 1675-1725. This subject is repeated in a different composition with Guanyin seated on a highest ledge with eighteen luohans and two acolytes below her and a bridge over water at the base in an example included in the exhibition Blanc de Chine: Divine Images in Porcelain, China Institute Gallery, New York, 2002, catalogue no. 37. The sculptural quality and positioning of the main deity and the waves at the base may be compared to the present example. For two other rockwork groups, see ibid., catalogue no. 10, for an unusual water pot; and catalogue no. 44, a deity with four attendants. These three examples are all in the Robert H. Blumenfield Collection.