Page 92 - Himalayan Art Macrh 19 2018 Bonhams

3034
A GILT COPPER ALLOY FIGURE OF MAHACHAKRA VAJRAPANI
ATTRIBUTED TO SONAM GYALTSEN (A. 15TH CENTURY),
CENTRAL TIBET, CIRCA 1430
Himalayan Art Resources item no.61568
8 3/8 in. (21.8 cm) high

$150,000 - 200,000
西藏 約1430年 銅鎏金大輪金剛手像
傳為索南堅贊之作

This vigorous and bold sculpture depicts the fierce Mahachakra-Vajrapani embracing his
bejeweled consort (prajna) in yab-yum. Mahachakra-Vajrapani, a yidam (or meditational
deity), is most often depicted with three heads and six arms, carrying a vajra and snakes,
and treading on Brahma and Shiva. He wears an animal skin around his waist with a
serpent-headed belt tied at the back, while his consort holds a kapala in her left hand
and vajra in her right.

As Dr. Pal notes about a similar pair formerly in the Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck
Collection and now at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Pal, Art of Tibet, Los
Angeles, 1983, p.211): “Both figures convey a robust sense of volume with thick, solid
limbs revealing subtle transitions from one area of the body to another...the fingers of
the hands are delicately rendered, while the expressive faces exhibit features that are
precisely articulated and modeled with sensitivity.”

An abundance of submissive snakes coil around the limbs and crowns of the divine
couple, their hoods upturned and alert. The consort wears a shimmering silk garment of
incised flowers and auspicious emblems, overlain with a beaded festoon fastened by a
belt of inset turquoise lozenges draped in a sweeping motion as she raises her left leg
around Vajrapani’s hip. One pendant descends across the knee in a particular flourish,
dangling before the furrowed brow of the immaculately modeled tiger skin hugging her
lover’s right leg. Their hair is chased and while hers cascades downwards like a waterfall,
his mushrooms upwards.

Mahachakra is a Tantric form of the bodhisattva Vajrapani, appearing as a meditational
deity and regarded as completely enlightened. Just as there are many forms of Vajrapani,
so too are there many varieties of Mahachakra, both with consort and without, with
retinue figures or solitary. In Tibet, entreaties are considered more efficacious when made
to a deity in the company of their consort, and the yidam adopted by monks and priests
are invariably represented in the yab-yum attitude.

Showing like refinement and treatment of regalia as the Avalokiteshvara
Sahasrabhujalokeshvara included in this sale (lot 3033) (for instance, the bracelets and
armbands comprised of a pointed five-lobed leaf inset with turquoise borne from three
lotus petals), this work can immediately and confidently be attributed to the master
sculptor Sonam Gyaltsen, identified by inscription on the previous lot. Similarly, the
treatment of the present lot’s tiger skin around the rear and right leg is almost identical to
that of a Chakrasamvara from the artist’s oeuvre sold by Bonhams, New York, 16 March
2015, lot 18.

Provenance
Private Collection, London
Private Collection, New York

90 | BONHAMS