Lot 101
DEHUA MULTI-ARMED FIGURE OF DOUMU
QING DYNASTY, 19TH CENTURY
Auction: 13 March 2024 from 10:00 GMT
Description
清 德化白瓷斗母座像
the Daoist goddess seated on a lotus base with one pair of hands placed in her lap and one pair held in front of her chest in anjali mudra, the remaining arms radiate to the sides, with each hand holding an attribute, the face with serene expression and wearing a bejewelled five-pointed crown
Dimensions
26.5cm high
Provenance
Private English collection, London; acquired by current owner’s great-aunt Etta May Gubbins (1871-1955) during her honeymoon trip in Asia around 1910. Etta May Gubbins married in 1909 at Kilmallock, Ireland to Captain Burston Beresford Gubbins (1876-1929), The 13th Hussars.
May Gubbins, nee May Gibson, was the eldest of the three daughters of Edmund Gibson who was born at Quernmore Park, near Lancaster in 1824, went out to New Zealand with his brother Wilson and staked a claim to about 20,000 acres of land in South Island and died at Otago in 1886.
Footnote
A similar figure is illustrated by R. Kerr and J. Ayers in Blanc de Chine, Porcelain from Dehua, Chicago, 2002, p. 53, fig. 3. Another example of this type is illustrated by P.J. Donnelly in Blanc de Chine, New York, pl. 99B and pp.172 and 173, where the author explains that this figure is often known as Doumu, the Daoist goddess of the Pole Star.