Four-armed Avalokiteshvara Sadaksari, lacquered and gilded wood sculpture, China for the Tibetan market, Ming dynasty, Yongle period, the Bodhisattva seated in dhyanasana, wearing a robe revealing his chest, adorned with numerous ornaments (bracelets, necklaces, earrings) and a crown with eight points, the central one containing an effigy of Amithaba, his black hair pulled up into a bun, with a lock falling on each shoulder, two of his hands joined in anjali mudra, the other two in karana mudra, h. 57.5 cm (restorations) The fact that this representation of Avalokiteshvara probably originally incorporated, as is customary, a rosary (mani) in one hand, and a lotus (padme) in the other, makes its identification with its Sadaskari form (literally six-syllable form) relevant, i.e. as the personification of the famous six-syllable mantra Om Mani Padme Hum , designating the path to full awareness and enlightenment. The sculpture features a consecration cavity beneath the base, the contents of which were extracted by Danielle Etienne, supervised by Jérôme Ducor. The cavity contained: - fragments of blue silk book covers, one bearing the title of a sutra of the Medicine Buddha: '''''''''''' (Yaoshi liuli guang rulai benyuan gongde jing)- two small suites of tightly-wound calligraphic papers, as well as a third which was unrolled. The latter includes seven pages of Tibetan calligraphy - a two-part leporello album bearing the text of the Lotus Sutra: ''''''''' (Guanshiyin pusa pu men pin jing), with text and illustrations - a leporello album including a Taoist text referring to the Great Bear Writings: ''''''''''' (Taishang xuanling beidou benming yansheng zhenjing) also known as ''' (Beidou jing), with text and illustration A carbon-14 test was carried out on June 30, 2010, at ETH Zurich, Laboratory of Ion Beam Physics, dating the sculpture to the years 1302-1414 Provenance: bought on the Geneva market in 2009