About the Work

A seated corpulent Budai figure decorated in famille verte enamels on the biscuit. The bald figure is shown smiling with its mouth open, and has elongated earlobes. He sits with his right leg bent upwards and the left bent forwards, his hands resting on his knees, and wears a robe falling off his shoulders, painted with splashes of green, yellow/ochre and aubergine in the ‘egg-and-spinach’ pattern. His left hand holds the top of a cloth sack, and his right holds prayer beads, left on a biscuit. The flat base is left in biscuit.

The form of this figure derives from depictions of Budai Heshang, one of the many forms in which Maitreya, the Buddha of the future, is represented in China. His physical attributes influenced his common Chinese name, Budai, meaning “cloth sack,” a reference to the bag he carried for all his worldly possessions. He became known in the West as the “Laughing Buddha” due to his smiling features.

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