MING DYNATY, 15TH CENTURY

According to the inscription, the maker of the present figure is probably Chen Yanqing of the early 15th century. The signature of Chen Yanqing is found on two dated gilt-bronze figures, one is a gilt-bronze figure of Laozi, dated 1438, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, illustrated in Daisy Patry Leidy and Donna Strahan, Wisdom Embodied. Chinese Buddhist and Daoist Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2010, pl. 38; the other a gilt-bronze figure of Zhenwu dated 1439, from the collection of Robert Sonnenschein II, now in the Art Institute of Chicago, illustrated in Stephen Little, Taoism and the Arts of China, Berkeley, 2000, pl. 103. Compare also with a gilt-bronze figure of seated Shakyamuni bearing Chen’s signature sold at Sotheby’s London, 8 November 2017, lot 67.