Each robed figure has a small child seated in her lap, with auspicious objects to one side, 29.5cm.
A granter of benefits and mercies and a helper on the path to Enlightenment, Guanyin appears here as the giver of children.
The figures appear in the 1690 Devonshire Schedule, an inventory itemising an extraordinary bequest from Elizabeth, Countess of Devonshire (1619-1689), to her daughter Anne, Countess of Exeter (1649-1700).
They are listed as: ‘two large white Ffigures with children in their lapps.’
In the West, figures of Guanyin, Bodhisattva of Compassion, were perhaps the most popular of all the products from the Dehua kilns.
