Guanyin and a falling child, from an album of twenty-four portraits of Guanyin

Inscribed with a poem:Alone and reckless [the boy] tumbles into the pit; falls in the ditch.Leisurely he gestures the mudra and that solitary Brightness glimmers and gleams.In this world there is no eliminating the danger [delusion], for there is [always] a stumbling.If one does not grasp the pivot [the bodh-mind], the mother-mind [our Buddha nature] is then split.As is the case with many Chinese women artists, little is known of Miss Qiu’s biography beyond the fact that she was the daughter of the famous painter Qiu Ying (active 1530-50). Two of the seals on this album belong to Xiang Li, one of the wives of the famous Ming collector Xiang Yuanbian. Qiu Ying lived with the Xiangs toward the end of his life; Miss Qiu might have lived there then as well and after her father’s death maintained a close relationship with the family. Her album is inspired by a woodblock print series based on paintings by Ding Yunpeng (1547-1628) that were in turn based on a famous handscroll depicting thirty-two manifestations of Guanyin by Li Gonglin (1049-1106) that was owned by Xiang Yuanbian. In this image the boy represents the mind who falls alone through the void. Falling is associated with attaining enlightenment by turning to the sentient nature and buddha-hood within. Both the infant and the bodhisattva gesture the vitarka mudra, symbolizing the ultimate doctrine.