Page 42 - Christie's Inidian and HImalayan Works of Art, March 2019

PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF BARONESS EVA BESSENYEY
(LOTS 601-640 AND LOTS 719-724)

630
A BRONZE FIGURE OF VAIROCHANA
KASHMIR OR WESTERN TIBET, 10TH-11TH CENTURY
8¿ in. (20.6 cm.) high
$30,000-50,000

PROVENANCE
Carlo Cristi, New York, 27 March 2004

The tathagata Buddha Vairochana, the lord of
Akanistha Heaven, performs the teaching gesture or
dharmachakramudra, seated in vajrasana atop a double lotus
base supported by a stepped platform. The fgure’s wide
eyes, arched brows, tall crown, simple ornamentation, lobed
belly, dual petal-shaped lotus base and faming aureole
identify this sculpture as either of Kashmiri or Western
Tibetan origin. The profle of the present fgure matches
the Kashmiri style of modeling quite closely, wherein a
straight line can be drawn from the forehead to the tip of
the nose; while the tiered, square base is more common
among Western Tibetan bronzes. The assimilation of artistic
style from Kashmir into Western Tibet in the tenth-eleventh
century, as well as the presence of Kashmiri artists in
Western Tibet, make it dificult to determine provenance
with certainty. Compare the present example to a fgure of
Maitreya attributed to a Kashmiri artist working in Tibet, in
the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, illustrated
as fgure a, below.
Himalayan Art Resources (himalayanart.org), item no. 24486.

Figure a: “Ascetic Boddhisattva Maitreya, Kashmir
schools in Western Tibet, dated 11th century; Brass,
H.26cm,” U. von Schroeder, Indo-Tibetan Bronzes,
Hong Kong, 1981, p. 160, fg. 44A