Chinese Buddhist wooden sculptures of Water-moon Guanyin a Bodhisattva sitting in a leasurely
reclining pose on a rocky throne are housed in Western collections and are thus removed from
their original context(s). Not only are most of them of unknown origin but also do lack a
precise date. Tracing their sources is moreover difficult because of the scant information
provided by art dealers in previous periods. Thus only preliminary investigations into their
stylistic development and technical features have been made so far. Moreover until recently
none of the Chinese temples that provided their original context i.e. their precise exact
specific position within those temple compounds and their respective place in the Buddhist
pantheon have been examined at all.In herstudy Petra H. Rösch investigates these very aspects
including questions about the religious position and function of the sculptures of this special
Bodhisattva. She also looks at the technical construction thecollecting of Chinese Buddhist
sculptures in general and those sculptures made of wood in particular.She uses a combination of
stylistic iconographical buddhological as well as technical methodologies in her
investigation of the Water-moon Guanyin images andsheds light on the Buddhist temples in Shanxi
Province the works of art they once housed and the religious practices of the eleventh to
thirteenth centuries connected with them.
