Size: Hight 32cm
The graceful figure is superbly and skilfully modelled, standing on an elephant. He is dressed in voluminous robes while open at the chest to reveal a bejewelled necklace. The face has a benevolent expression and serene smile. The right hand in Karana mudra and the left holding a lotus. The four-character mark He Chaozong yin in seal characters is impressed in relief on the back of the figure together with the double-gourd mark reading Dehua.
Object literature: The Blanc-de-Chine kilns of Dehua in Fujian, made Buddhist' figures for the Chinese and for a global market from the Ming (1368-1644) through the Qing (1644-1911) dynasties until now. Dehua porcelain contains a very small amount of iron oxide which means it can be fired to shades of warm white or ivory.
He Chaozong was a famous early 17th-century Chinese potter. He mainly produced Dehua Buddhist porcelain statues. Little documentary evidence remains for He Chaozong apart from few examples of his ceramic art. His works identified by his seal are in an entirely different category than the usual Dehua statuary of the period and those later. He Chaozong and the few other artists of the Dehua kilns were nearly unique in Chinese ceramic history which was characterised by anonymous and industrial scale production. Nowadays his works are very rare. The late 19th to the early 20th century experienced a revival of the He Chaozong style and we find his marks on these later works.
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