Svenska: FIGUR. Guanyin. Barmhärtighetens gudinna sittande i en grotta. Bakom figuren en glorieliknande omramning med fem hoprullade band på vardera sidan (till vänster ett band avfallet). Kring figuren i grottan en portal. Över och på ömse sidor om portalen klippformiga utsprång, nedtill stiliserade vågor. På taket, snäckor, gloria, bandornament, kapitäl och vågor. Svagt celadonfärgad glasyr, gruppen för övrigt oglaserad. Godset gråvitt.
Av Georg Karlin inköpt ur en sydtysk samling 1918 sedan såld hos Bukowskis 1919. Pris 1.025 Kr.
Guanyin grotto. Prob. late Southern Song, Yuan-dynasty c.1250-1300.
Quingbai-ware. Jingdezhen. Coming from a South German collection. Then sold at Bukowskis 1919.
Partially-glazed qingbai ware Guanyin shrine
Yuan dynasty, c.1280-1330
The shrine is nearly 30cm in height, thick-walled, and very heavy. From the back it is evident that the piece was formed by hand, for it is uneven and bears many fingerprints where the clay was shaped like a large slab of pastry. Its unfinished rear surface did not matter, because the piece was designed to be placed in a grotto or against a wall. Its different elements (figure, rockwork, roof, waves etc.) were each modelled separately and luted onto the surface, an immensely laborious and time-consuming method of manufacture. The shrine depicts Guanyin seated in a relaxed way, leaning on one arm with one leg drawn up, a posture that has been identified as representing Water-Moon Guanyin, a name taken from a Buddhist text called the Flower Garland Sutra. The deity is male, for he has a bare torso, and is shown reclining in a temple carved from a cliff-face above the sea. This scheme copied large-scale figures carved into rocky grottoes, that could be almost identical in posture and surrounds. Similar large, free-standing, carved wooden images were also made for temples. A magnificent example is a painted Guanyin from north China dating to the Liao-Jin period in the Rijksmuseum, that adopts the pose with raised knee supporting one arm, the weight of the body resting on the other straight arm. In terms of comparable qingbai porcelain, one may cite a seated with Guanyin with analagous facial expression, glazed robes and biscuit flesh unearthed in Shanghai city and dated to 1251. The lavish and exuberantly carved waves applied one-by-one to the base of the shrine resemble the appliqué details used on much smaller pieces of the era, for example brushrests. The roof-tiles are like those on the well-know model of a granary in Jiangxi Provincial Museum, dated 1338, and also having underglaze copper red painted details. From these reference points it seems likely that the Hallwyl Guanyin shrine dates to c.1280-1330.