Artwork Page for Eleven-Headed Guanyin

Details / Information for Eleven-Headed Guanyin

Eleven-Headed Guanyin

十一面觀音菩薩

1100–1200

China, late Northern Song dynasty (960-1127) - Jin dynasty

(1115-1234)
Medium
wood with polychromy and cut gold
Measurements
Overall: 218.5 cm (86 in.)
Credit Line
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1981.53
Public Domain
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Location
238 Chinese Ceramics
Print
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Did You Know?

This Guanyin is carved from a single block of willow (genus Salix sp.).

Description

The bodhisattva is an enlightened being dedicated to the spiritual awakening of all beings. The compassionate bodhisattva Guanyin, in a variety of manifestations, is probably the most popular deity of worship in Chinese Buddhism. In the Esoteric Buddhist form shown here, this standing Guanyin has a total of eleven heads, with smaller ones above the principal head. The uppermost head represents the Buddha Amitabha, to whom he is closely related. The eleven heads symbolize the Buddha’s steps on the path to enlightenment.
Larger-than-life carved, wood statue of Guanyin, a deity standing with his hips swaying to his right, right arm broken off and left arm broken off above the elbow. He looks slightly down, a murky circle inset into his forehead, and hair pulled up with several faces in it, most broken away. He wears a multi-layered, blue and red wrap around his waist, chest bare save for a wrapping over his left shoulder and a necklace.

Eleven-Headed Guanyin

1100–1200

China, late Northern Song dynasty (960-1127) - Jin dynasty (1115-1234)

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