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Subject:Re: Buddha statue family - stamp identification
Posted By: Bill H Mon, Jun 01, 2020
The mark reads from right to left as 'Made by Wang Quanji' (Wang Quan ji zao - 王荃記造). The name Wang Quanji is found on a list of artists formerly working at the Jingdezhen Municipal Porcelain Sculpture Factory, who had been transferred by 1955 to a Fine Arts Cooperative, which had been formed in Jingdezhen at a time when the People's Republic was still consolidating its administration of production. My Google query found quite a few online auction results and examples of porcelain figurines with this mark, most of them said to be of the Republic period (1912-49), with a few stating 'Late Qing-Republic'. In my opinion, some of the colored glazes used on such figures, particularly the cyanic green of the robe, can be taken as evidence of the above-cited production shift to control of the cooperative set up during the third quarter of the 20th century, in the early People's Republic era.
The entity with all the clinging children isn't a Buddha, per se, but the 'Cloth Sack Monk' (Budai Heshang - 布袋和尚), considered to be an avatar of the Mortal Buddha Maitreya, whose popularity in China has spilled over from Budddhism into Daoist beliefs and also into Japanese culture and Zen worship as the 'Hotei' (Budai), one of the 'Seven Lucky Gods' (see link below). In China and Japan, the 'Cloth Sack Monk' is much like Santa Claus, whose never-empty sack always has treats available for children and others deserving of them.
Here's another link you can paste into your browser to some online auction details.
https://www.cang.com/trade/goods/7717923
Best regards,
Bill H.
URL Title :Budai Heshang
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